Linking: to name/ or to name/index.htm

Does it matter? Is one inherently a bad choice?

[vich1]

For the purposes of asking others to link to pages on my site in order to build reputation/popularity, should I ask them to link (in their html) to:

[domain.com...]

or

[domain.com...]

?

Will google pick up on the first method or only on actual pages (ending in .htm, .html, .asp, etc.)

Thanks!

Vic

[Yidaki]

This has been discussed here many times. I'd suggest doing a site search at google and reading through the results [google.com].

ie. look this thread:
Do engines like /content or /content.html? [webmasterworld.com]

[buckworks]

I don't think it matters which way you do it, as Google and other SEs seem able to pick up the pages either way.

That said, try to pick one format for your URLs and stick with it. Be consistent both with your own internal linking and the links you cultivate from other sites. I believe (but can't prove) that your link popularity will pack a bit more punch if it isn't split between variant forms of your URLs.

[Slud]

Since it probably makes not difference which one you use (as long as you don't use both) to Google, I'd go with the "/thispage/" one.

Key Advantages:
*shorter
*looks cleaner
*gives you the flexibility to change the page later without asking all the links be changed (e.g /thispage/index.asp, /thispage/index.php, etc.)

[pageoneresults]

Most definitely /sub/. Why? Well, I learned the hard way. I originally built a few sites using all .htm extensions. Then after the sites being live for a few months, the client needed to add some functionality which required .asp pages (we're on a Windows Server). I'm sure you can envision what I'm getting at.

My suggestion is to never add the page name and extension if the url is directed at a root page for that directory (index.htm, index.html, index.asp, index.php), whatever your file extension may be.

Encourage links to the /sub/ link instead of /sub/index.htm. If you ever decide to change file extensions, there will be a lot of backtracking to do to clean it all up.

P.S. Slud beat me to it, I was just a little too slow in responding to that one. ;)

[vich1]

Wow! Thanks for all the fast responses. I'll heed the advice of using /file/.

Vic

[aroach]

I use the first option just in case I ever change my site to PHP or something and as a result all my extensions change.

I learned this when I switched to using SSI and thought I was going to have to change all my extensions to .shtml. Turned out I didn't have to do that but I would hate to lose all my links in the future over a similar situation.