Resolving your index page

index.htm vs index.html vs index.cgi vs...

[trillianjedi]

I have asked this question before but no-one had the categoric answer, and researching for myself has drawn a blank, except to say that I currently favour the argument that google indexes all of these pages seperately:-

www.domain.com
www.domain.com/
www.domain.com/index.html
domain.com
domain.com/
domain.com/index.html

So, when obtaining an inbound link, what you really need to do is set a standard for the actual href.

For example, in dmoz I have two listings, one in the main category and one in regional. One is linking to "www.domain.com/" and the other to "www.domain.com/index.php".

The PR transferred is to the two different URL's (both of whcih are in the google index as duplicates) rather than being concentrated on one. I don't want that.

Is there anything I can do with .htaccess? I guess there's no harm in me, for example 301 redirecting all of the possible URL's for the index page to one.

Thanks,

TJ

[Chris_D]

TJ

You hit the nail on the head. Use Google to search WW - not the on site search. Even with all the current Dominic issues - you will find answers here faster using Google - in my experience. Try a search on 301 redirecting or 301 redirection

: )

Chris_D

[trillianjedi]

Yes, I've just been playing with that Chris.

Problem is, it returns 701 results!

Any tips for the best way to narrow this down? I'm sure that my question must have been posted before (in fact, come to think of it, I posted it once before - about a month ago!).

So as a test, what google search would bring up the correct thread?

TJ

[Yidaki]

>use google
>Problem is, it returns 701 results!
>Any tips for the best way to narrow this down?

How i found the linked threads using google alone (took 2 minutes to compile the list):

- site:www.webmasterworld.com+trailing+slash [google.com]
- site:www.webmasterworld.com+index.php+index.htm [google.com]
- site:www.webmasterworld.com+changing+urls [google.com]
- site:www.webmasterworld.com+301+redirect [google.com]
- site:www.webmasterworld.com+directory+index [google.com]
- site:www.webmasterworld.com+transferring+pagerank [google.com]
- site:www.webmasterworld.com+example.com/+example.com/index.htm [google.com]
- site:www.webmasterworld.com+domain.com/+domain.com/index.htm [google.com]

Ya see the infinity?

... don't get me wrong - i appreciate your questions and i'm allways willing to give answers if i have some ... however, some questions has been answered in the past allready so why not use google's built in WebmasterWorld site search [google.com]? ;)

[vincevincevince]

A good site search engine would fix that - the current one makes it very difficult to find what you need.

I always pondered whether being able to give hrefs to individual posts, not just whole threads could then lead to retrospective post importance, kind of page rank for WW. i.e. posts by me would have PR0, and most posts by GG would be soon PR10 ;-)