www.domain.com/ and www.domain.com/index.php both indexed

Should I use a 301?

[HarryM]

Google has two entries for my home page in its index. The cache for www.domain.com/index.php is freshed most often, the last being 14 March. The cache for www.domain.com/ is usually an older version of the page.

Does this affect my PR in any way?

Obviously I have little control over how people link to me, so there will probably always be inbound links in both formats for Google to follow. Should I use a 301 to redirect www.domain.com/ to www.domain.com/index.php, or does this cause complications? Or should I leave it as is?

Any advice appreciated.

[HarryM]

This has become more complicated. Since yesterday's backlinks and Toolbar PR update, the PR for www.domain.com/index.php is PR5, but for www.domain.com/ it is PR3.

Backlinks to www.domain.com/ show Google directory and DMOZ only (both PR4 - most of my high-PR links are deeper). Pages containing "www.domain.com/" show a bunch of sub-PR4 links.

Backlinks to www.domain.com/index.php show all my internal PR4 pages. Pages containing "www.domain.com/index.php" show a link from Yahoo directory (PR3).

Now I really don't know what to do! Or indeed if there is anything that can or should be done.

Does anybody have any advice?

[HarryM]

I've given this question a bump as it seems to have been overlooked. Has anyone any suggestions?

[celerityfm]

Hmm. Well, I can't suggest which one you should "go with" but I can tell you what to do when you make that decision--

Instead of referencing "www.domain.com/index.php" in your internal pages when referring back to the "homepage" of your site, you should just refer to "www.domain.com" .. or if you have a query to tack on you could do "www.domain.com/?variable=foo".

That eliminates your internal links to index.php (which is why I bet it was indexed seperately in the first place). Now, if you stop linking to index.php then hopefully that'll discourage its appearance in the SERPs.

Then again.. if your not getting penalized and your getting good results then you may just want to leave it alone :).

[HarryM]

Thanks celerityfm,

All my internal links back to my home page are in the format ../index.php and it would be easy to change them to ../ if that is the way to go. Converting them to www.domain.com/ would give me problems as I also run my site on a local host server for test purposes.

I am also confused as to what is considered normal for internal links to the home page.

[celerityfm]

You could just link everything to "/" instead of "www.domain.com/" and all your queries go to "/?variable=foo".

That would have the same effect I believe. But as far as whats normal, not so sure :) Anyone else care to comment?

[HarryM]

Thanks celerityfm,

I have now changed all my internal links to ../ format instead of ../index.php, and am trying to convert the external links that include the /index.php - thankfully only a couple. Keeping my fingers crossed that Google will sort it out at the next update.

I have also discovered that I have domain.com indexed as PR0. Where that came from, I have no idea, but will be using a mod rewrite to try and eliminate it.

[celerityfm]

Good deal, hope it works out!