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.
Are there any SEO benefits changing the default home page filename (index.htm) to a keyword rich filename
-
II'm a newbie. I have a website using the default home page filename: index.htm. I have total control over the web server. I was wondering whether I can get any SEO improvements for my main keyword if I change the default filename with a filename that contains the main keyword, like our-main-product.htm (doing the 301 redirect and changing the server search order, of course)?
-
Thasnk you so much for your help, Paul.
-
Hey Oscar - my second language is French and I couldn't possibly have asked the question in my other language as well as you have here, so don't worry about the language issue at all!
For your question about changing the index.htm to something with a keyword: no, that would have absolutely no effect. As long as the redirect was with a 301 code, the search engines and the visitors will never know that page even exists. That's the whole purpose of the 301-redirect. it makes that page invisible to the search engines.
I would also strongly advise not to switch to a keyword-rich subdomain. that's just asking for a lot of headaches and problems in the future.
What you are suggesting here is trying to create what is called and Exact Match Domain (EMD), meaning the title of your domain matches the keyword you are trying to rank for. The value of these has recently been lowered by Google anyway, and as I say, doing it using a subdomain will cause all kinds of hassles, not to mention confusion for your users.
If I were you, the area i would be focusing most of my efforts would be on building and earning links form other websites. At the moment, you essentially only have one other domain linking to you.
In addition, trying to rank with a very competitive general term like impresión digital will be very difficult for a new site. Better to use terms like impresión digital en Chihuahua and others related to where you offer your services. This is assuming that most of your customers are fairly local, not from all over the Internet.
Hope that answers your question? If not, be sure to let me know.
Paul
-
Hi Paul:
I already got rid of the index.htm name appearing in the url homepage, and also I have all the needed 301 redirects for the mydomain.com, mydomain.com.mx and mydomain.mx pointing to www.grafimart.com. Please, take alook at: www.grafimart.com
What I really want to know is whether I can get some SEO benefit if I change the index.htm main home page filename for my main keyword: impresion-digital.htm, even when it is not to be shown to the users. In other words: Does the google bots consider as a valid keyword the index page name, even when it is not shown?
http://www.grafimart.com/impresion-digital.htm
instead of:
http://www.grafimart.com/index.htm
I´m thinking on this based on the fact that my domain name is a branded name and I find difficult to get better SEO for my main page using a subdomain like
(impresion-digital.grafimart.com)
Hope you can understand my poorly written english.
Oscar
-
Google weights most of its SEO 'strength' to the actual domain name iteself - and even then, from left to right i.e the further right your main keyword is, the less juice it will get.
However, if you have relevant content on the page and name the page accordingly then you are making what is called an 'seo friendly' URL. Many people who use Wordpress for example, change their permalinks to change the url from something like mysite.com/p1 to mysite.com/keyword - which WILL make a difference, albeit not a huge one.
So if it's straightforward for you to do so, then by all means do it. Outside of SEO it will help your visitors better understand what the page is about, and will look a lot prettier in the SERPs too.Also, rather than 301'ing each page, you may be able to change the structure of your permalinks within your .htaccess file so that it will happen automatically e.g by naming the file with the title of your page or postname.
Hope this helps...
-
What you actually want to do is get rid of that index.htm address for your home page altogether, Oscar. You want your visitors to only be able to reach your homepage at one URL. This means you need to use 301 rewrites to make your /index.htm page redirect to your primary domain name. (E.g. the website name with no filename after it.)
You also want to make sure that you have chosen between www.youdomain.com and yourdomain.com (without the www) as the primary address, and rewritten the other one to point to the primary. This is called canonicalisation of the home page. The search engines see each of those addresses as completely different pages because they have different URLs - even though they display the same page. As a result, they'll be considered duplicate content and will effectively be competing against each other.
There are many questions here in Q&A that explain how to do these kind of redirects. Let us know if you can't find one that works for you.
Hope that helps?
Paul
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Hi, Does having orphan pages on my site negatively affect my seo? Thank you.
Hi, I have quite a few orphan pages on my site and we see that our rankings have fell significantly over the past 6 months. Can this have be negatively affecting our rankings? Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | whiteonlySEO0 -
SVG image files causing multiple title tags on page - SEO issue?
Does anyone have any experience with SVG image files and on-page SEO? A client is using them and it seems they use the title tag in the same way a regular image (JPG/PNG) would use an image ALT tag. I'm concerned that search engines will see the multiple title tags on the page and that this will cause SEO issues. Regular crawlers like Moz flag it as a second title tag, however it's outside the header and in a SVG wrap so the crawlers really should understand that this is a SVG title rather than a second page title. But is this the case? If anyone has experience with this, I'd love to hear about it.
On-Page Optimization | | mrdavidingram2 -
Why is my contact us page ranking higher than my home page?
Hello, It doesn't matter what keyword I put into Google (when I'm not signed in and have cleaned down my browsing history) the contact us page ranks higher than the home page. I'm not sure why this is, the home page has a higher page authority, more links and more social media shares, the website is an established one. When I have checked Google Analytics my home page gets more people landing on it than the contact us page. It looks like people are ignoring the contact us page and scrolling down until they find the home page. I'd appreciate any help or advice you might have. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | mblsolutions2 -
How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
I have a client who recieved this advice from his marketing consultant: "If there are multiple h1 tags on a page, this can confuse Google and it may have a negative impact on the keyword rankings. If you could ask your web developer to go in and remove the h1 tags on the header images that would be helpful. This way it will be easier for Google to index your site and will help your keyword rankings." How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
On-Page Optimization | | GRIP-SEO0 -
My Meta Description changes when i use different keyword in google search.
Hello everyone, I have a question for the community. I have a website with several articles and news that i manage. I set specific meta descriptions for every page but when i search in google it gives me back different meta descriptions depending on the keyword that i use to search. What i notice is that google looks in my page for the most relevant part of the text that combines with my keyword and gives me back that result. I thought that this only happen when i have an empty meta description. Anyone felt the same ? Best Ricardo www.meuportalfinanceiro.pt
On-Page Optimization | | Adclick0 -
SEO Location Pages - ALT Image Tag Question
Hello Guru's, I have a Hire Website whereby you can rent products online. I have created different Location pages for these which are in essence the same pages page but with different location specific urls, title tags , on page content etc etc. This helps me to rank for local search. These location pages also display 20 products per page. My question is Should I make the ALT IMAGE TEXT location specific for each of the 20 products . Example - Steam Cleaner Rental in "location" or should I only amend a few of the Atl Image Texts to be location specific. I don't want to come accross as spammy in google eyes but I also don't want to be seen as having duplicate content , images etc etc What do you think ? thanks Sarah.
On-Page Optimization | | SarahCollins0 -
I have two pages ranking for the same keyword.
The index page and the targeted landing page for that keyword. They have different content, title, meta but I am competing with myself for the main keyword in the industry. What is the best way to fix this? 301 the keyword page to the index page?
On-Page Optimization | | Aftermath_SEO0 -
Wordpress: Should I NO INDEX Categories & Archives Pages?
I am new to SEOmoz & trying to work my way through the ca-trillion errors that have been found on my site, but for each one I want to ensure that I am helping rather than harming my site. The tool has (as a "notice") said that my category pages & Archives are NO-INDEX, is this how these pages should be dealt with? In addition, the crawler has also (as a "warning error) discovered that my categories, and Archives do not have a meta description..is this of great importance for non indexed pages of this type? Thanks so much to the SEOmoz forum members, you have so far been of invaluable help to me.
On-Page Optimization | | KMack2