Why is Google looking for index.html when index.html never existed?

[bluntforce]

Looking through WMT today and found that Google was having an issue(404s) with some significant external links pointing to my example.com/index.html The external links all actually point to example.com/ which has been consistent for many years, index.html never existed.

I've resolved the issue but the question is "Why is Google insisting index.html should exist?". Is this a possible by-product of the canonical tag?

[bwnbwn]

Most likely someone other than internal links linked to the html that is why.

I assume you did a 301 to the domain name only and not the example.com/index.htm

If your links are pointing at example.com/index.htm or whatever your ending is I would correct it to point to the example.com/

[edited by: bwnbwn at 1:06 pm (utc) on May 7, 2009]

[tedster]

It does sound like an artifact of something on Google's back end. Bottom line is that these WMT reports do not mean "this is definitely hurting you", they only mean here's something you might want to know about.

[g1smd]

Redirect to strip off the index filename and force the correct domain name. Ensure it is a 301 redirect. Move on.