Google and .shtml files

[PFOnline]

Hi, we recently had to change our main page's extension from .html to .shtml so we could update our news more easily....

From your experience, do sites seem to do OK with the .shtml extension in Google? Does Google really care?

Does anyone have a site that uses index.shtml for there main page and do well in Google?

We have a pretty good ranking right now for our sites main keyword, so I hope it won't mess that up!

[marcs]

Why don't you simply configure your web server to enable/parse SSI on .html pages? That way you don't have to rename any pages.

Something like this could do the trick (in .htaccess of httpd.conf) :

AddHandler server-parsed .html

[Sami_boy]

Well, 25.600.000 pages in the google index.

Try this search:

[google.com...]

But if some of your backlinks points to [redwidget....] com/index.html you might have some trouble.

[PFOnline]

Woah marcs, so you're telling me theres a way to have SSI stuff in a regular .html file?

Can anyone elaborate a little more on how to do this? That would be AWESOME!

or can anyone confirm that:

AddHandler server-parsed .html

adding that to the .htaccess file will make SSI work in HTML? So then I wouldn't have to mess with all the troubles of changing from index.html to index.shtml!

[PFOnline]

Nevermind, found an article on how to do it!

Just had to add:

AddType text/html .html
AddHandler server-parsed .html

to the .htaccess file

and VOILA! Now I'm running SSI stuff on a regular index.html file! WOO HOO! Thanks for the idea marcs!

Now I don't have to worry about Google and other search engines and stuff, were back to index.html and the SSI stuff is working!

God I love this forum! :D

Would have also not been good if some sites linked to mysite.com/index.html and then that stopped working and stuff too...

[DrOliver]

The only downside might be that your server has to parse each and every .html-file even if there's nothing to parse in it, which might slow down the server a bit or even quite a bit.

Don't care about it if all or most of your .html-files have anything to parse in it.

But if it's only a small percentage of files that need to be parsed, then you might want to check out the "XBitHack":
[httpd.apache.org...]

[djgreg]

I have many .shtml files on my pages and never had any problem with Google. It is not important what type of html site it is. That only by the way because now you are parsing .html files ;-)

[webdoctor]

Hi, we recently had to change our main page's extension from .html to .shtml so we could update our news more easily....

I can't imagine why anyone would need to explicitly link to index.html - why not just have links to the directory and let apache pick up the default document? Here's the relevant part of httpd.conf:

# DirectoryIndex: sets the file that Apache will serve if a directory 
# is requested. 
# 
DirectoryIndex index.shtml index.html 

Reference www.example.com/ and your server will offer index.shtml if it exists, if not then it will offer index.html.

webdoctor

[Gonzalez]

Look here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

I think it will help you.

[PFOnline]

Oooh, yeah... Didn't notice it until now, but putting the SSI in regular .html file way REALLY slowed down not just the main index.html page, but ALL pages on the site...

I've reverted back to using a .shtml file and just doing a permant 301 redirect from the .html file to the .shtml file...

This should be fine for Google and other search engines and now the pages are loading much faster...

Just thought I'd post that, if anyone was trying this themselves... Thanks for help, all. :)