Removal request for "index.html" was denied

[dstiles]

I had occasion last week to remove the page http://www.example.co.uk/index.html from a site that only has .asp pages. Two people had linked to it from way back - I've since asked them to change the URL.

The scary thing is google's response. It denied the removal request - fair enough due to it possibly being still in their database - but it actually told me it was trying to remove the URL http://www.example.co.uk/ which is VERY worrying. Did they really try to remove the whole site? Did they try to remove the index.asp page? Or is it just a case of sloppy reportage?

This is NOT a friendly report!

[tedster]

There have been a number of reports in recent weeks about Google's sometimes odd handling of "index.html" and the domain root. It appears that currently they sometimes treat the two urls as identical - possibly a side effect of their efforts to find canonical urls.

I would suggest you create a 301 redirect form index.html to the domain root and let Google sort it out from there.

[jomaxx]

Yeah, just forward the page. That way you still get credit for these two inbound links, plus the others that will inevitably follow sooner or later.

[youfoundjake]

From what I understand, on server's hosting IIS and .asp pages, it's easier to 301 non-www, then it is to 301 index.* to root since it causes a loop...
Any one else hear this?

[tedster]

You're right about the looping pitfall on Windows Jake, but in this case that problem shouldn't come up - because the content for the domain root is at index.asp and he wants to redirect index.html.

The challenge is particularly rough for shared Windows hosting where there is no admin access to the server. With admin access, you have more tools at your disposal.

[youfoundjake]

Yeah, that occured to me about 5 minutes after I posted, and I remembered the default.aspx page. Sigh..

[dstiles]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

The page has been removed so will 404. It only came up in two results in google so I'm not particularly worried: the default root is still fine plus any index.asp accesses. I only noticed the index.html in the first place because a couple of suspicious UAs came in on it. One of them has now been changed, the other isn't important.

It was google's response to the removal request that worried me. Had it not failed ("the url is indexed by someone") I would have worried that the whole site had been removed! As it was, a nasty few minutes wondering what the hell I'd done.