home page index.htm?

bad file name?

[The_Hat]

So I’ve been working on this site for a while now and i noticed that the actual file name that the server points to is "home page index.htm" with the spaces and all. Now i have read that spaces are not something that you want to have in file names. Is this correct even for this file even though the name isn't actually used? Also, now that the web has been up for years before I got there and all, would it even be a good idea to change the name or would it cause more problems than it's worth? The server is a windows 2000 box.. (Wish it was a nix).. I tend to think windows = insecure. All thoughts welcome.. Thanks guys.

[g1smd]

That page should be named as index.html or as index.htm only.

The browser looks for those pages by default if just a directory name (not the full URL including page name) is specified by the person looking at the site.

File names should not have spaces in them as this breaks in some browsers, underscores are also not easy to read, and you are best off having all file names all in lower case as well.

With content negotiation you don't even have to specify the .html or .htm filename extension. You could just name the file as index which means your site becomes transparent to technology changes from using static HTML pages to changing over to asp or php or other server-side languages.

[The_Hat]

Hey thanks for the reply, You have enforced my gut feelings on the subject. However i doubt the hosting co. is going to change up os's just for me. SOOO if my domain all of a sudden started pointing to index.htm like it should be instead of the way it is / is that going to cause a severe disruption in the way the search engines see it or not. ( i have noticed there is a index.htm on the server as well but it isn't used)

[ShawnR]

"...The browser looks for those pages by default if just a directory name (not the full URL including page name) is specified by the person looking at the site..."

Its the server which serves up the default page, not the browser which looks for it. If the server is configured incorrectly, as is the case with The_Hat's problem, then when a browser goes looking for www.domain.com, the page served will be www.domain.com/home%20page%20index.htm

"... doubt the hosting co. is going to change up os's just for me..."

I don't see any issues. This is a configuration setting on the webserver, and it is settable individually for each website being hosted, if you are being hosted on a shared machine.

"...is that going to cause a severe disruption in the way the search engines see it or not..."

Once you have changed the server config, and renamed your "home page index.htm" to "index.htm", put a "permanent redirect" to make "home page index.htm" point to "index.htm".

Shawn

[webboy1]

ShawnR is correct. Changing the default homepage is not a problem. It is not the browser that "finds" the homepage, it is the server that tells the browser where to look. You could set up your server to recognise any page you like as the homepage if you wanted i.e. index.asp, default.html, home.asp banana.js

Your hosting company should do this for you without problem.....it is a 2 minute job.

Webboy