Marcia - 1:52 pm on May 2, 2007 (gmt 0)

They will take the most appropriate URL, which is with / almost 99% of the times. I have never seen a duplicate content issue so far due to this. For www and non-www google has an option under webmaster console.

No, they will NOT take the "most appropriate" URL. Which would that be, among myriad possibilities? That's an unrealistic, unfounded assumption with no basis other than supposition. And why should they? The different URLs can and often are different pages. Assuming they'll take the most appropriate URL is a pipe dream at best, and totally unrealistic.

I most certainly have seen a duplicate content issue with this, and with good reason. They're not the same URL, and URLs are each indexed with a unique DocID for each URL. Read the white papers and the patents for confirmation.

Additionally, the average Joe Shmoe's webmaster generally knows nothing about Google's Webmaster Console, maybe never even heard of it. They're generally totally clueless and just do the index.htm thing for the sake of the ease of running the site in a development environment and then transitioning it to the live site.

The developer's "convenience" is not Google's concern or problem, it never was, still isn't, and never will be.

[edited by: Marcia at 2:05 pm (utc) on May 2, 2007]