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garek007
garek007
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home/about/index.html  versus home/about.html  for SEO

Dec 22, 2008 10:54 AM

Hi,

I have what I think is an SEO question here.

I can never really decide what way is best to organize files on a website.

Let's say I have 3 main top level buttons. About | Services | Product

is it better to organize each of these pages in a folder with an index.html file so the path reads

www.home.com/about

or is it better to have each one be named with what the page is ie about.html and get a path like

www.home.com/about.html

I like the cleanliness of the first option, but which is better for SEO?

Thanks,
Stan
2207 Views   12 Replies   Latest reply: Garek007, Dec 28, 2009 12:57 PM
 
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    1. (Nicholas_Spence),
    Dec 22, 2008 10:59 AM   in reply to garek007
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    Use the one which makes the most sense. For example, if you have a bunch of
    pages under "about" then it will make the most sense to use an "about"
    folder. If there is only one page, you are sinking the one page further away
    from the domain name.

    ~Nick
     
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  • garek007
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    2. garek007,
    Dec 22, 2008 12:47 PM   in reply to garek007
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    thanks nick
     
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  • Don McCahill
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    3. Don McCahill,
    Dec 23, 2008 6:16 AM   in reply to garek007
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    If you just have three main pages, then a flat file system will work fine. But when you start getting into big sites, with a lot of pages and areas, then you will want to go to the hierarchial file structure.

    Keep it as simple as possible, unless you foresee a huge site in the future. It is much easier to plan the site ahead, rather than making changes later.
     
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  • garek007
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    4. garek007,
    Dec 23, 2008 9:55 AM   in reply to garek007
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    tru, I just like the cleanliness of

    www.home.com/about

    as opposed to

    www.home.com/about.html

    but in terms of organization it is always nicer to keep it simple. Does the organization have any bearing on SEO?
     
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  • Don McCahill
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    5. Don McCahill,
    Dec 24, 2008 6:32 AM   in reply to garek007
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    I don't think it will cause any problems, but I haven't kept up on SEO trends since I stopped teaching. You might want to check in with some of the SEO pages and discussion boards for more detailed information from the people that follow this closely.
     
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    6. (rohnsmith),
    Dec 24, 2008 9:47 PM   in reply to garek007
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    Hi,

    I'm newbie to this board but I am working SEO works since many time. It really very good thread that you have started and also it is very important to know if you in SEO field.

    I certainly agree with Nicholas's reply. He has shared nice information and I'm with him. I appreciate his reply.

    Thanks!

    rohn smith
     
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  • shunithD
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    7. shunithD,
    Nov 25, 2009 6:26 AM   in reply to garek007
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    screenameunavailable wrote:

     

    tru, I just like the cleanliness of
    www.home.com/about
    as opposed to
    www.home.com/about.html

    but in terms of organization it is always nicer to keep it simple. Does the organization have any bearing on SEO?

    No, the site structure will not affect the SEO. Search spiders explore the whole site and follow the links...

     
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  • MoneyTopList
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    8. MoneyTopList,
    Nov 25, 2009 1:15 PM   in reply to garek007
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    For the SEO purposes, the highest value is assigned to the keywords in the domain name, then in the sub-domain, directory name and the lowest in the file name. So the best structure may look like this:

     

    1. The most kompetitive keyword your target should be in the domain name (or sub-domain).

    2. Another keywords with high competition may be presented in the directory names.

    3. The specific keywords with low compatition shoud be in the file names.

     
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  • neetusharma
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    9. neetusharma,
    Dec 3, 2009 11:58 PM   in reply to garek007
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    Stan,

            Though many people have advised you here and you might have decided which one to choose, I would advise you on the second one "www.home.com/about.html" .

    This is because in SEO you need proper and classfied categories and this works well and makes SEO easy for the person who would be working on SEO for you.

    The first looks neat no doubts about this but then it comes to be as simple as being more detailed and more organized. This fact is no different in SEO.

    My team works on this and I am advising you based on our views

     
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  • texxsmith
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    10. texxsmith,
    Dec 5, 2009 12:49 PM   in reply to garek007
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    www.home.com/about

    is definetly the best alternative.  Even better,  always remove the www's.

     

    Here's why:  Let's say your site is about blue dogs.  Your domain name probably is something about blue dogs.  adding the www's to your domain name makes your domain less about blue dogs.  The SE's use a percentage scale to find relevancy in urls's.  Using the www's water this down.

     
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  • Garek007
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    11. Garek007,
    Dec 28, 2009 12:30 PM   in reply to texxsmith
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    how do you remove the www's?


     
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  • Garek007
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    12. Garek007,
    Dec 28, 2009 12:57 PM   in reply to garek007
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    Just an update on this.

     

    I ended up going with

     

    www.home.com/category/pagename.html

     

    and then pagename.html uses javascript to load different flash files.

     

    I'm sure it's not the best SEO, but I needed them to be able to update it.

     

    the site is www.dahlingroup.com

     

    I redid my own site using Joomla and when you set it up for best seo the links tend to be like so

     

    www.home.com/pagename.html

     

    cheers

     
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