Does it matter where you place your html files?

this is for search engine bots

[robobat]

Hi, i am glad to be here..I am not really replying to anything that much, because i myself don't know that much..that is why i am asking this question. Does it matter where you place your html files in order for the spyder bots to see it. For example: if my url is
[example.com...] will the search engines be able to crawl through here and find the page? what is the best place to place your webpages in your directory? thx in advance for all the help guys

[edited by: Woz at 8:32 am (utc) on Jan. 30, 2005]
[edit reason] examplified URLs [/edit]

[ken_b]

Your example would work fine.

The navigation (link) structure is probably at least as important as what folder a page is in.

Home page > mystuff.htm

is only on hop for the bot, whether the directory structure is

example.com/mystuff.htm

or

example.com/content/morecontent/evenmorecontent/mystuff.htm

On the other hand even if all your pages were in your root (main) folder you could still make the bot hop through a dozen links to get to mystuff.htm

example.com/hisstuff.htm > example.com/herstuff.htm > example.com/theirstuff.htm >
example.com/thedogsstuff.htm >
example.com/someoneelsesstuff.htm > example.com/mystuff.htm

etc.

Basically you want to keep the path as short as possible, with-in reason.

[zollerwagner]

My understanding is that the search engines follow links, and they don't care about your directory structure. So the number of links (hops, as the previous writer said) to a page is the important factor, not where it's located in your directory structure.

For questions about SEO, you might want to search Jill Whalen's Highrankings forum. Like WebmasterWorld, it also has very high quality advice.

[robobat]

thx a lot you guys for helping me out :)

[Reid]

the best way is to add a sitemap

sitemap.html

googlebot looks for this and knows what it is for.
It is a page that links to every page on your site.
No more than 2 hops from home to any page.