best type of link

#1

I've got a choice of what links to make on my site

One is like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname

or this,
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

Do the search engines care what I use ? It one better than the other ?

#2

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 02:50:05 GMT, meltedown <groups2 (AT) reenie (DOT) org>
wrote:

Quote:

I've got a choice of what links to make on my site

One is like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname

or this,
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

Do the search engines care what I use ? It one better than the other ?

Both lead to the same page, right? If so, then what is the difference?

I've been told, by some folks, to use http://www.example.com/ for the
main page menu/navigation bar link then, if repeating a link to the
main page, share the full url http://www.example.com/index.html in
hopes of duping some search engine spiders into thinking it is a
different URL/link shared (for the same page though).

Carol

#3

meltedown <groups2 (AT) reenie (DOT) org> wrote:

Quote:

I've got a choice of what links to make on my site

One is like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname

or this,
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

Do the search engines care what I use ? It one better than the other ?

Neither :-D.

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/ is the best.

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname results in a 301 redirect to
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/, so is a waste of your server time, and
the visitors time

If people link to http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

and

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/

might be seen as 2 different URLs for caching etc.

So in short:

add the /
drop the index.html if / is the same as index.html (often the case)

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

#4

Carol W <from_you (AT) nomail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 02:50:05 GMT, meltedown <groups2 (AT) reenie (DOT) org
wrote:

I've got a choice of what links to make on my site

One is like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname

or this,
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

Do the search engines care what I use ? It one better than the other ?

Both lead to the same page, right? If so, then what is the difference?

Explained in my other post :-D.

Quote:

I've been told, by some folks, to use http://www.example.com/ for the
main page menu/navigation bar link then, if repeating a link to the
main page, share the full url http://www.example.com/index.html in
hopes of duping some search engine spiders into thinking it is a
different URL/link shared (for the same page though).

Uhm, now that would be a stupid bot. Also, if index.html and / are seen as
two URLs, you have to worry about duplicated content.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

#5

On 4 Dec 2005 03:03:46 GMT, John Bokma <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

Carol W <from_you (AT) nomail (DOT) com> wrote:

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 02:50:05 GMT, meltedown <groups2 (AT) reenie (DOT) org
wrote:

I've got a choice of what links to make on my site

One is like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname

or this,
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

Do the search engines care what I use ? It one better than the other ?

Both lead to the same page, right? If so, then what is the difference?

Explained in my other post :-D.

*snicker* You went techie though. I went the lazy route - although,
you are right that the trailing slash is recommended ..

Quote:

I've been told, by some folks, to use http://www.example.com/ for the
main page menu/navigation bar link then, if repeating a link to the
main page, share the full url http://www.example.com/index.html in
hopes of duping some search engine spiders into thinking it is a
different URL/link shared (for the same page though).

Uhm, now that would be a stupid bot.

Well I did say they did it "in hopes of duping" - but some folks
think the bots can be that stupid. *shrug*

Also, if index.html and / are seen as

Quote:

two URLs, you have to worry about duplicated content.
Ah, but they figure the bots would be smart enough to figure out "it

is the same page, not a different one" thereby avoiding penalty
thoughts.

#6

John Bokma wrote:

Quote:

meltedown <groups2 (AT) reenie (DOT) org> wrote:

I've got a choice of what links to make on my site

One is like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname

or this,
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

Do the search engines care what I use ? It one better than the other ?

Neither :-D.

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/ is the best.

Yes, actually, that is what I meant.
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname results in a 301 redirect to
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/, so is a waste of your server time, and
the visitors time

If people link to http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/index.html

and

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/

might be seen as 2 different URLs for caching etc.

So in short:

add the /
drop the index.html if / is the same as index.html (often the case)

Yes they are essentially the same

the only difference being in how the data is drawn from the data base.
For example

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/sale-300.html

After the url modification, this becomes
http://mysite.com/catalog/index.php?brandid=300

But if I do it like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/

After the url modification, this becomes
http://mysite.com/catalog/index.php?...=acmebrandname

The first is preferable for avoiding confusion in the database, since it
uses the integer to identify the brand instead of a string. However, if
the first method will result in higher search engine placement, I'd
rather use that.

#7

meltedown <groups2 (AT) reenie (DOT) org> wrote:

Quote:

John Bokma wrote:

[ .. ]

Quote:

add the /
drop the index.html if / is the same as index.html (often the case)

Yes they are essentially the same
the only difference being in how the data is drawn from the data base.
For example

http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/sale-300.html

After the url modification, this becomes
http://mysite.com/catalog/index.php?brandid=300

But if I do it like this:
http://mysite.com/acmebrandname/

After the url modification, this becomes
http://mysite.com/catalog/index.php?...=acmebrandname

Uhm, that are 2 different URLs, so I guess you want to get different
pages? (Note: use example.com for examples).

Quote:

The first is preferable for avoiding confusion in the database, since
it uses the integer to identify the brand instead of a string.
However, if the first method will result in higher search engine
placement, I'd rather use that.

Uhm, this is a different question :-D

Now you want to know, which is better:

http://example.com/acmebrandname/sale-300.html

or

http://example.com/acmebrandname/

?

(BTW, there is no such thing as confusion in the database, in the database
there is always order ;-) )

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

#8

Carol W <from_you (AT) nomail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

On 4 Dec 2005 03:03:46 GMT, John Bokma <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote:

[..]

Quote:

main page menu/navigation bar link then, if repeating a link to the
main page, share the full url http://www.example.com/index.html in
hopes of duping some search engine spiders into thinking it is a
different URL/link shared (for the same page though).

Uhm, now that would be a stupid bot.

Well I did say they did it "in hopes of duping" - but some folks
think the bots can be that stupid. *shrug*

well, if a bot finds /, it understands that it's http://example.com/
I doubt if any bot of a serious SE can't do that simple thing (since what
is it going to do with / ?

So for a bot it shouldn't make a difference if you use:

<a href="http://example.com/">example</a>

or

<a href="/">example</a>

both are on example.com identical.

Quote:

Also, if index.html and / are seen as
two URLs, you have to worry about duplicated content.

Ah, but they figure the bots would be smart enough to figure out "it
is the same page, not a different one" thereby avoiding penalty
thoughts.

Uhm, so then it doesn't make sense at all. Or is the fun in getting the
bot twice, once for / and once for index.html? Since there probably is
some kind of limit on the max number of urls indexed a day, that would be
wasting a bot visit.

(Did you check out my script? Nifty, not?)

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

#9

John Bokma wrote:

Quote:

Uhm, this is a different question :-D

Now you want to know, which is better:

http://example.com/acmebrandname/sale-300.html

or

http://example.com/acmebrandname/

?

Yes, I would like to know which is better for the search engine. They
both go to the same page.

#10

meltedown <groups2 (AT) reenie (DOT) org> wrote:

Quote:

John Bokma wrote:

Uhm, this is a different question :-D

Now you want to know, which is better:

http://example.com/acmebrandname/sale-300.html

or

http://example.com/acmebrandname/

?

Yes, I would like to know which is better for the search engine. They
both go to the same page.

if sale is an important keyword, the former. If you have more sale pages
you could decide to make the http://example.com/acmebrandname/ page a kind
of overview page, i.e. a short introduction (one paragraph), with links to
each sale-xxx.html page.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/