Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. Algorithm Updates
    4. Homepage Index vs Home vs Default?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Homepage Index vs Home vs Default?

    Algorithm Updates
    2
    4
    4416
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • KempRugeLawGroup
      KempRugeLawGroup last edited by

      Should your home page be www.yoursite.com/index.htm or home.htm or default.htm on an apache server? Someone asked me this, and I have no idea. On our wordpress site, I have never even seen this come up, but according to my friend, every homepage HAS to be one of those three. So my question is which one is best for an apache server site AND does it actually have to be one of those three?

      Thanks,

      Ruben

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KempRugeLawGroup
        KempRugeLawGroup @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

        Thanks so much! I really appreciate the insight.

        Ruben

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • BlueprintMarketing
          BlueprintMarketing last edited by

          If you want more information yes  Apache server does make

          Most Apache web servers have set the following pages as the default page with a directory.

          default.htm default.html index.htm index.html index.php

          If using WordPress you could see index.php because WordPress

          Uses a PHP Database regardless of what your friend told you ideally you should have

          Properly 301 redirected static links when talking about links that are going to be seen by Google.

          this

          Means WordPress websites ideally should not contain publicly visible index file of any kind.

          To cut to the chase I have cited this response from Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team. to Yoast

          Referenced from http://yoast.com/wordpress-seo-url-permalink/

          I emailed Matt and asked whether it makes sense to add .html for systems like WordPress. His response:

          In general I wouldn’t. My WP has urls like http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/remove-result/ and that’s pretty ideal.

          So. Case closed.

          Should I add .html to my permalink structure?

          A good collection of resources. Are posted as links below this line.

          Use Yoast http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

          Is an excellent source of WordPress knowledge I strongly recommend using the Yoast WordPress seo tool the reason a side from being one of the very best Word press plug-ins that enhance your Word press site this one uses

          http://yoast.com/change-wordpress-permalink-structure/

          http://yoast.com/wp-content/permalink-helper.php

          If you need to make changes to your link structure A great

          resource I understand redirects is the link under this line

          http://24ways.org/2013/url-rewriting-for-the-fearful/

          If you need to redirect an index tag using Nginx

          http://winginx.com/htaccess

          http://moz.com/blog/htaccess-file-snippets-for-seos

          http://codex.wordpress.org/Linking_Posts_Pages_and_Categories

          KempRugeLawGroup 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • BlueprintMarketing
            BlueprintMarketing last edited by

            Merry Christmas,

            Ruben

            Your friend is speaking about a 100% HTML site and the answer is your site should not end using

            www.yoursite.com/index.htm or home.htm or default.htm

            Using Word press your site should end in www.yoursite.com or www.yoursite.com/

            Some people when they ring there site over from an HTML static site to WordPress they might find a parma links

            http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

            If you do this and 301 redirect any links that would be changed  by using  WordPress to the new Permalink structure shown below or if you feel like using one of the others which I recommend against you may. However most sites are best served using the settings below.

            Sincerely,

            Thomas

            mzwr77N.png

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            Browse Questions

            Explore more categories

            • Moz Tools

              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

            • SEO Tactics

              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

            • Community

              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

            • Digital Marketing

              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

            • Research & Trends

              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

            • Support

              Connect on product support and feature requests.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • vtmoz

              Fresh backlinks vs old backlinks: A solid ranking factor?

              Hi Moz community, Backlinks being a major ranking factor, do they must be very recent or fresh to make a ranking difference compared to the backlinks which are years old? We know usually fresh content ranks well, but I wonder how much the fresh/recent backlinks impact in rankings. Do the years old backlinks from related and reputed website have same impact on rankings? Thanks

              Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz
              0
            • vtmoz

              A page will not be indexed if published without linking from anywhere?

              Hi all, I have noticed one page from our competitors' website which has been hardly linked from one internal page. I just would like to know if the page not linked anywhere get indexed by Google or not? Will it be found by Google? What if a page not linked internally but go some backlinks from other websites? Thanks

              Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz
              0
            • micromano

              Does using parent pages in WordPress help with SEO and/or indexing for SERPs?

              I have a law office and we handle four different practice areas. I used to have multiple websites (one for each practice area) with keywords in the actual domain name, but based on the recommendation of SEO "experts" a few years ago, I consolidated all the webpages into one single webpage (based on the rumors at the time that Google was going to be focusing on authorship and branding in the future, rather than keywords in URLs or titles). Needless to say, Google authorship was dropped a year or two later and "branding" never took off. Overall, having one webpage is convenient and generally makes SEO easier, but there's been a huge drawback: When my page comes up in SERPs after searching for "attorney" or "lawyer" combined with a specific practice area, the practice area landing pages don't typically come up in the SERPs, only the front page comes up. It's as if Google recognizes that I have some decent content, and Google knows that I specialize in multiple practice areas, but it directs everyone to the front page only. Prospective clients don't like this and it causes my bounce rate to be high. They like to land on a page focusing on the practice area they searched for. Two questions: (1) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for SEO? The research I've done up to this point appears to indicate "no." It doesn't make much difference as long as the keywords are in the domain name and/or URL. But I'd be interested to hear contrary opinions. (2) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for indexing in Google SERPs? For example, would it make it more likely that someone searching for "anytown usa divorce attorney" would actually end up in the divorce section of the website rather than the front page?

              Algorithm Updates | | micromano
              0
            • newspore

              Flat Structure URL vs Structured Sub-directory URL

              We are finally taking our classifieds site forward and moving into a much improved URL structure, however, there is some disagreement over whether to go with a Flat URL structure or a structured sub-directory. I've browsed all of the posts and Q&A's for this going back to 2011, and still don't feel like I have a real answer. Has anyone tested this yet, or is there any consensus over ranking? I am in a disagreement with another SEO manager about this for our proposed URL structure redesign who is for it because it is what our competitors are doing. Our classifieds are geographically based, and we group by state, county, and city. Most of our traffic comes from state and county based searches. We also would like to integrate categories into the URL for some of the major search terms we see. The disagreement arises around how to structure the site. I prefer the logical sub-directory style: [sitename]/[category]/[state]/[county]/
              mysite.com/for-sale/california/kern-county/
              or
              [sitename]/[category]/[county]-county-[stateabb]/
              mysite.com/for-sale/kern-county-ca/ I don't mind the second, except for when you look at it in the context of the whole site: Geo Landing Pages:
              mysite.com/california/
              mysite.com/los-angeles-ca-90210/ Actual Search Pages:
              mysite.com/for-sale/orange-ca/[filters] Detail Pages:
              mysite.com/widget-type/cool-product-name/productid I want to make sure this flat structure performs better before sacrificing my analytics sanity (and ordered logic). Any case studies, tests or real data around this would be most helpful, someone at Moz must've tackled this by now!

              Algorithm Updates | | newspore
              0
            • businessowner

              Google Index

              Hi all, I just submit my url and linked pages along with xml map to index. How long does it take google to index my new pages?

              Algorithm Updates | | businessowner
              0
            • measurableROI

              Wistia vs. YouTube

              Hello, Mozzers!  Sorry if I've missed a thread on this, but I didn't find anything after searching for a while... I've used Wistia for years - LOVE the service and the company!  Had great luck getting Rich Snippets, ranked well...  until the recent Google change.  Now all of my Wistia thumbnails have disappeared (though my rankings have stayed strong, thank goodness!)  M question is, does it make sense to now embed YouTube videos on our site, and to create a video sitemap with those pages, with the hope that Google will rank the page better than it otherwise would have, knowing that there is valuable (video) content on the page?  This is new videos, I'm not thinking of replacing my Wistia videos at this time. I'll probably need to clarify as I see your responses, since this is a tricky set of interrelated decisions.  Thanks for any thoughts that anyone may have!  🙂 ~ Scott

              Algorithm Updates | | measurableROI
              1
            • SorinaDascalu

              Is it possible that Google may have erroneous indexing dates?

              I am consulting someone for a problem related to copied content. Both sites in question are WordPress (self hosted) sites. The "good" site publishes a post. The "bad" site copies the post (without even removing all internal links to the "good" site) a few days after. On both websites it is obvious the publishing date of the posts, and it is clear that the "bad" site publishes the posts days later. The content thief doesn't even bother to fake the publishing date. The owner of the "good" site wants to have all the proofs needed before acting against the content thief. So I suggested him to also check in Google the dates the various pages were indexed using Search Tools -> Custom Range in order to have the indexing date displayed next to the search results. For all of the copied pages the indexing dates also prove the "bad" site published the content days after the "good" site, but there are 2 exceptions for the very 2 first posts copied. First post:
              On the "good" website it was published on 30 January 2013
              On the "bad" website it was published on 26 February 2013
              In Google search both show up indexed on 30 January 2013! Second post:
              On the "good" website it was published on 20 March 2013
              On the "bad" website it was published on 10 May 2013
              In Google search both show up indexed on 20 March 2013! Is it possible to be an error in the date shown in Google search results? I also asked for help on Google Webmaster forums but there the discussion shifted to "who copied the content" and "file a DMCA complain". So I want to be sure my question is better understood here.
              It is not about who published the content first or how to take down the copied content, I am just asking if anybody else noticed this strange thing with Google indexing dates. How is it possible for Google search results to display an indexing date previous to the date the article copy was published and exactly the same date that the original article was published and indexed?

              Algorithm Updates | | SorinaDascalu
              0
            • richardstrange

              Is a slash just as good as buying a country specific domain? .com/de vs .de

              I guess this question comes in a few parts: 1. Would Google read a 2-letter country code that is after the domain name (after the slash) and recognize it as a location (targeting that country)? Or does is just read it as it would a word. eg. www.marketing.com/de for a microsite for the Germans www.marketing.com/fr for a microsite for the French Or would it read the de and fr as words (not locations) in the url. In which case, would it have worse SEO (as people would tend to search "marketing france" not "marketing fr")? 2. Which is better for SEO and rankings? Separate country specific domains: www.marketing.de and www.marketing.fr OR the use of subfolders in the url: www.marketing.com/de   and    www.marketing.com/fr

              Algorithm Updates | | richardstrange
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.