Is a static directory valued equally to a static page?

example.com/dir/ vs. example.com/dir/page.html

[harleyx]

A while ago I switched all my dynamic links over using htaccess. For those of you not schooled on this subject, that simply means instead of a URL being:

[example.com...]

it is now:

[example.com...]

This not only provides more useful keywords to a search engine, but search engines seem to index/rank static links more generously than dynamic. That has been my experience. Since I have performed the switch search engine traffic has more than doubled, and the number of indexed pages in the big three google-yahoo-msn has risen considerably (in the 2 months since I switched).

The question I'm curious about is this: does a URL with a filename.html ending hold more sway with search engines than a URL with only a directory ending?

For instance, would it give any extra weight (besides adding the additional keyword weight) to a webpage to switch from:

[example.com...]

into

[example.com...]

? Anybody have experience with this?

[jd01]

It is my understanding thah the w3c has actually recommended (at sometime in the future) removing the file type from the end of the URL string. (Check their site for details.)

I have seen non-query string pages rank higher, because many SE's still either cannot or choose not to read information after the ?. I have seen more query strings in listed URL's lately though, so maybe things are changing.

As for your original question I have not noticed any difference personally between a 'directory' a page with type indicated 'page.html' or a page with no type 'page'. You might receive a better answer in a discussion that is more greared to SEO than I can give though.

Justin

[JAB Creations]

Shorter URLs are always better in general and as well for SEO with little or no doubt.

[harleyx]

With regard to that, I agree no doubt shorter URL's are better.

But with regard to the extension vs. directory, do you think it would be better to use:

[example.com...]

OR

[example.com...]

OR

it would make no difference either way. Still curious on opinions of that particular point.