shtml vs html and htm

[oilman]

Anybody know the latest on shtml vs html et al? I don't think we've had this discussion for awhile and I was wondering if anyone else has noticed a change in the amount of shtml pages showing up and how well (or not) they are ranking.

[WebGuerrilla]

I just had a discussion this morning with a client who doesn't want to make the necessary modifications to allow me to parse .html files for SSI. I always tell them it's better for positioning to use .html, but the truth is I just don't like the fact that .shtml makes it obvious that you're messing with stuff before you deliver the page to the browser. (especially if there is cloaking involved).

It has always seemed quite possible to me that .shtml would be treated as more of a suspect than other extensions, but I've never really taken the time to do any definitive testing.

>>I was wondering if anyone else has noticed a change in the amount of shtml pages showing up

I haven't noticed any changes, but I'm curious what type of change you have seen. More or less?

[oilman]

I'm not trying to avoid the question but the 'else' is a typo. Just should have been 'anyone' ;)

I haven't really noticed much at all. I seem to have come across a few more dynamic extensions (shtml, cgi etc) but not enough that I'm willing to go with it yet. Gonna stick with .html for the time being.

[Vishal]

AltaVista is being very slow in indexing my site with .shtml extension, but is good when it comes to .html and .htm

Also, I have noticed the difference in ranking. Most (almost all) good ranked web site for competitive keywords are with .html or .htm extensions.

[rcjordan]

Ditto what Vishal said. On Google, the highest I've been able to get .shtml (index.shtml, btw) is #2 on a fairly competitive term (28,000 pages returned). The highest non-index.shtml has been #8.

[MatB]

Can't say I have ever noticed a problem. Most of the sites that I manage are .shtml and I have got #1 listings in quite a few search engines with various .shtml pages from these sites.

[Brett_Tabke]

I do agree they seem more "se friendly" today than they did a couple years ago, but like WG, I just don't trust them.

[highman]

I have recently launched a site that is .shtml, it now holds #1 for 200,000 returned search.

BTW its index.shtml and does not use any cloaking its just so I can use SSI for menus and footers etc