Are Common filenames in subdirectory tree bad ?

[doughayman]

Hi all,

I make use of a subdirectory (or subfolder) tree hierarchy for websites. For example, I have multiple websites that adhere to the following format:

www.example.com/web1/home.htm
www.example.com/web2/home.htm
.
.
.
www.example.com/webN/home.htm

where each webN folder effectively houses a different website.

Note that I use the physical filename of "home.htm" as the root website filename under each subdirectory-based website.

"Home.htm" has a common look and feel to it, but the content is certainly not duplicated across all of the "home.htm" files.

I notice that all of these filenames have a PR of 0 in Google, whereas other unique filenames (pages) under the website subdirectories have a PR of greater than zero. Several of the "home.htm" files are indexed by Google, but the majority of them are not even indexed. Some of these websites have been around for years - hence, they are not brand new websites by any stretch.

Does anyone know if Google will "punish" for such a file nomenclature duplication under a given domain ?

Thanks in advance,

Doug

[edited by: tedster at 1:11 am (utc) on Feb. 13, 2008]
[edit reason] use example.com- it can never be owned [/edit]

[tedster]

No punishment - but there's a potential canonical issue, if www.example.com/webN/ also resolves to www.example.com/webN/home.htm

[doughayman]

Tedster,

Can you elaborate on this please ?

www.example.com/webN/ does resolve to www.example.com/WebN/home.htm for my sites ? Is this considered a form of duplication ?

Thanks again,

Doug

[edited by: tedster at 2:46 am (utc) on Feb. 21, 2008]
[edit reason] switch to example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[tedster]

It's the same principle as domain root versus index.html as discussed here in our Hot Topics section: Domain Root vs. index.html - yet another kind of duplicate [webmasterworld.com]

They are two different urls, and they technically can hold different content. So they can be indexed separately, splitting PR, backlink juice, etc. The solution is to pick your preferred version (usually the one without the file name and extension is best) and 301 redirect to that.

[doughayman]

OK, Tedster, thanks. I see your point.

Since my webserver innately doesn't support 301's (only supports 302's - "Temporary moves"), I may decide to make the directories:

E.g., www.example.com/WebN/

be a 403 (forbidden access), which I can accomplish from my webserver configuration, and only allow for:

www.example.com/WebN/home.htm

to be the only unambiguous URL here, since in many instances, it is already indexed in Google (just that it has a PR of 0).

As long as I can live with the file reference (which is the opposite of what you suggested), this should work OK, correct ?

[edited by: tedster at 2:47 am (utc) on Feb. 21, 2008]
[edit reason] switch to example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[Pico_Train]

Turning off Indeces in .htaccess should do it no? Or am I mistaken?

[doughayman]

I am running an old Windows-based webserver, called O'Reilly and Associates Website, so .htaccess is not an option for me