Google Cache

two results for index page

[gardener]

I am seeing two different results for one site's index/default page in the Google cache.
www.example.com's cache is at least two weeks old - www.example.com/default.htm's cache is always just a few days old - SAME PAGE!

I found this while doing a site:search a few weeks. ago. I check back every week and default.htm's cache is always ahead.
The link search is identical for both pages, so Google must know it's one and the same page - why would they be treated as two?
FYI - the main page is updated several times a week, has a pr of 5, never has a freshbot date.

[edited by: ciml at 1:41 pm (utc) on July 19, 2004]
[edit reason] Examplified [/edit]

[ciml]

If Googlebot gets exactly the same content on two URLs (not even one word changed), then it will normally merge them. Whichever URL is kept gets the PageRank and backlinks from both URLs.

> FYI - the main page is updated several times a week

Could it be that Googlebot visits the two URLs at different times and gets different content as a result?

[gardener]

Yes that's exactly what is happening.
The content is updated jsut about every other day -

Is there any way to let google know this is one and the same page?

[ciml]

One approach is always to link to / and not /default.htm - eventually this should cause /default.htm to disappear.

You could issue a 301 redirect (from the URL I guess it's a Microsoft [webmasterworld.com] server) from /default.htm to / - but you'd need to be careful not to redirect / to itself.