"index.html not found" error in Webmaster Tools

[FromBelgium]

I get 50 "not found" errors in webmaster tools for mydomain.com/index.html, all from pages linking to the root mydomain.com. I do not have index.html, but index.php. This error occured on ten different days, so I guess no server error. Anything to worry about?

[g1smd]

Link to "/" within your site and set up a 301 redirect that redirects index.html and index.htm and index.php back to "/" for root.

Make that redirect work for the root and for all folders, stripping the index filename off for all (and preserving the rest of the path).

Details and code can be found in the WebmasterWorld Apache forum.

[FromBelgium]

Thanks g1smd! Can you direct me to a specific post? I already link to "/" and I get the error for 50 pages already linking to "/". It seems that the server sometimes (when Google visits) redirects "/" to "index.html".

[antoineFR]

Hello !

I have the same trouble in a french site.

Did you have a sudden drop of trafic ?

Cheers.
Antoine.

[tedster]

It seems that the server sometimes (when Google visits) redirects "/" to "index.html".

That's something to track down and fix - most esepcially if search engine bots are being treated differently than the regular browsers. The domain root (or directory root) should resolve directly with no redirects needed.

Here's a thread that discusses the domain root versus index.html issue in more detail:

[webmasterworld.com...]