Changing index page extension

will this hurt in google.

[Powdork]

Hello all,
I want to add a server side include to my homepage. Iam finding what i want but am told (perhaps wrongly) that I need to have an .shtml or .shtm file extension for this to work. I would only be making the change to my index page. So here are my questions.
1. Can I do it without changing the extension. It is currently index.html
2. Does Google consider this to be a name change at all. For instance does Goggle consider my index page to be www.example.com or does it consider it to be www.mysite.com/index.html
Thanks

[edited by: ciml at 10:50 am (utc) on May 23, 2005]
[edit reason] Examplified [/edit]

[Powdork]

A bump and more details. I want to add a time stamp to my home page in the form of
<!--#ECHO var="DATE_LOCAL" -->
Also, I would rather have everyone see my local time rather than their local time (it's a travel destination).

[walkman]

I would link just to www.domain.com/ no index.ext at all. This way, you can change the extension at anytime.

[Powdork]

I do that with all absolute links. That's why I am thinking it won't matter, but I sure as heck don't want to change the name of my index page if it does matter.

[WebWalla]

If you have an Apache server, add this line to .htaccess ...

AddHandler server-parsed .htm .html

You can then use server side includes without changing the file extension.

[Powdork]

That sounds exactly like what I am looking for.
Thank You

oops. Almost exactly what I'm looking for. Any way to make it show pacific time exclusively?

[Powdork]

And another question. I do have an .htaccess file, does it matter where I put this? i.e. after or before the Rewrite rules

[WebWalla]

This thread should probably be now moved to the Apache forum [webmasterworld.com] because I'm certainly no expert but my understanding is that you can use one of two variables ...

DATE_GMT - The current date in Greenwich Mean Time.
DATE_LOCAL - The current date in the local time zone.

If you want some other time zone you'll probably have to write a short script.

Regarding where you should put the AddHandler line, I have it as the first line but I don't think it's important.

[Powdork]

Thanks WebWalla,
The AddHandler works fine added after my rewrite rules.
This probably could easily be moved to apache forum since the Google part has been AddHandled.;)
I'm guessing it will be something to the effect of
DATE_GMT(-9:00) but am not sure. I guess I'll try and see.

Are there any security issues with what we've done?

[WebWalla]

Again, I have to say I'm no expert but I think you've probably improved security.

This is because I believe documents with .shtml extensions have more security issues.

[g1smd]

If you link to an index page then use one of these formats, so that the issue of changing the actual page name does not affect your links in any way at all:

href="/"
href="/folder/"
href="http://www.domain.com/"
href="http://www.domain.com/folder/"

The trailing / is important; always include it.