index or named?

using a directory for seo

[soapystar]

is there any weighting to favour one of the following over the other

www.domain.com/keyword1-keyword2/index.htm

www.domain.com/keyword1-keyword2.htm

i see a lot of guys using a directory and index.html route every important page, i just dont see why that would benefit other than the assumption that every index page get an algo boost simply for being an index page.

[DerekH]

For me it's convenience - I can put the main "way in" to that section of a website in its own directory, and the supporting pages, images, and whatnots in the same place.

It just makes it so much easier to manage on my hard disc - when I use my web authoring tool, I see a list of all the web pages, and I simply close the folders I'm not interested in, and open the ones I am...

I've not seen any difference in SERPS between a directory + index file and simply a filename, although I note that google helpfully removes the index.html suffix from my listings anyway, so that they look really neat and tidy.

For me - a labour saving device on my hard disc.
DerekH

[TheDave]

I see it as a benifit to the users that they don't have to remember the .html so I use folders with a default doc lots. I saw someone advertising a website on TV the other day, and the address was something like www.our-fancy-domain-name.com\followedby\directories\andindex.html - seriously if you're gonna advertise on TV at least make it so they can remember it! ;)

[pleeker]

I believe I've seen previous answers to questions like this that suggest it's better to not use the directory approach. I've never seen a difference myself.

For me, I'm with Derek and Dave -- using the directory path is more convenient for me, and more importantly, more convenient for customers -- to remember, to tell friends about, to print, to use in advertising, etc.

[soapystar]

I wonder how many people would actually tell someone a deep link rather than a domain? Normally i imagine deep links would be bookmarked or pasted by email if swapped?

[pleeker]

I wonder how many people would actually tell someone a deep link rather than a domain? Normally i imagine deep links would be bookmarked or pasted by email if swapped?

I see a lot of print and TV ads with the domain and a single directory named as the URL.

company.com/widget
company.com/clearance
etc.

I wouldn't call that 'deep-linking', but it's a bit easier to give out than

company.com/clearance.html

or something else.

And when you consider that a lot of companies create private sites/pages (with URLs like the ones above) that they only advertise to mailing list subscribers ... and those mailing list subscribers tell their friends about the big clearance sale ... etc.

It happens probably a lot more than you'd think.

[kaled]

As I said in another thread, for me the issue is mainly about being able to change my site without breaking external links. Links to directories (that serve default pages) will not break if the page is changed from index.html to, say, index.php

It may not always be possible to have external links point to directories, but where it is possible, you may save yourself a lot of work in the future.

Kaled.