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Michael
When the web first started every user using MS OSs based on DOS (and a few more too i think) HAD to use htm. No use using standards if the great majority of developers couldnt use them due to something as fundamental as limited character lengths in the development level OS. AFAIK, the first windows OS that used longer extensions was Win 95 (or NT?) which came around many years after the WWW. I do realise that unix users were not as limited, but fact is that most web designers used the Windows platform, as it was so available to people who didnt have access directly to servers and only ran websites on desktops and then ftp'd to the server.
However, it would still have been possible for the PC people using DOS and Windows 3.11 to have continued using the .html extension, because every FTP program ever made has a facility built into it for renaming the file once it has been uploaded to the host computer. Not a lot of people knew that. Many still don't.
The later versions of Windows, from 95 onwards, allowed long filenames to be used, so now there is a complete mixture as to which extension is used.
It could be index.abc as long as you server knows .abc to be a valid extension.
What I am getting at is this:
index.html
index.htm
index.asp
index.jsp
index.php
index.cgi
etc.
are all the same as far as search engines are concerned as long as the output is <html> format!
dhdweb
Yes .htm is short but I always use html, i used it to start with and use .shtml often so i like to keep it either with the s or just plain ;)
.html
.htm
.shtml
(never see .shtm anywhere?)
.php
.cfm
.pdf
.asp
.cgi
etc, etc, etc.
P.S.
I would use .ht, just like .pl, to make it even shorter!
.htm makes me think the page was made with FrontPage.
Remember when the best browser was MOSIC from U of I and Explorer wasn’t even in beta yet?
I’ll bet if a survey was done it would indicate that everyone using and liking html is older than people using htm.
because every FTP program ever made has a facility built into it for renaming the file once it has been uploaded to the host computer.
And that was the only way to do it yesteryear when using MS or PC DOS. I remember when I was learning HTML, most of the good resources was on Gopher and came from universities.
Is Gopher finally dead? I could not get any gopher://gopher. to work.
[labs.google.com...]
[directory.google.com...]
PS google has some dead Gopher links, which is why I said I couldn’t get any to work. Or is it Explorer? MS doesn’t have a Gopher tool.
Well if i was in their sample, I would invalidate your results straight away!
I always use htm and have been writing html pages since 1994, well before Front Page was even thought of, using mosaic as my main browser. Its more to do with the platform that you initially used to design. As a windows user, only 3 letter extensions were possible, and ever since ive seem no practical reason to change. All our youngish trendy part timers want to immediately start using html when they start, but that causes leagacy problems with changing all old url's and confusing the design or editorial team when they create links in new content back to old. (now was that URL htm or html?)
Now if you used unix as your operating system for design, or started later when Windows upgraded to Win95, then of course you would use html, so its got nothing to do with being a greyhair!
Not saying that posts 3 to 44 don't make for fascinating, interesting and informative reading, mind you; particularly the bits which clear up some of the 'old wives tales' like php being disliked by SEs.
I wonder if there is a record for the number of posts in a thread... Could try and aim for it... ;)
Now, if we were discussing a real weighty topic like "Should it be web.domain.com instead of www.domain.com?", then I'd have a lot to say!
I’ll bet if a survey was done it …
I always use htm and have been writing html pages since 1994 …
Well, now you know why I don’t play any lottery.
Now if you used unix as your operating system for design, or started later when Windows upgraded to Win95, then of course you would use html, so its got nothing to do with being a greyhair!
Actually I was using DEC OS. I was doing it before 95, however, when 95 came out, (I was also using NT on DEC ‘s Alpha RISC machine before Compaq purchased it), and I could use .html on a Windows box, and I did so I wouldn’t have to rename the ftp uploads and because of using DEC OS. Perhaps it is just a personal thing based on ones experience and length of service in IT, et al.
[denial]Gray? Those aren’t gray, those are blond.[/denial]
