Google duplicate page question

On some hosting companies index.html is the main page and others
default.htm is the main page

I usually just work on index.html and have a batch file copy it to
default.htm so I don't have to bother knowing which site I'm working
on.

My question is does having to identical files with different names on
a web site hurt Google raking and by how much.


http:\\homebotics.com

yRay wrote in
<09mfe0dklbh1lbr5lfnv20armv5j3jlujg (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>

On some hosting companies index.html is the main page and others
default.htm is the main page

I usually just work on index.html and have a batch file copy it to
default.htm so I don't have to bother knowing which site I'm working
on.

My question is does having to identical files with different names on
a web site hurt Google raking and by how much.

It's difficult to be precise what the downside might be. My view would be
that it's a duplicate page but it's hardly spamming; however, that's no
guarantee of what Google's view might be.

I'd answer the question by making it irrelevant - I'd get rid of the page
that you don't need. It's easy enough to find out what your host serves up
as the default page - I'll place a small wager on it being index.html.

Apart from anything else, when Google uses PR as part of its ranking algo
and PR is entirely dependant on inbound links (IBLs), it seems a pity to
risk splitting the IBLs between two pages.

Were I you, I'd worry more about optimising the site. There's a bit of FP
bloat in the source - though it looks better than most FP source that I've
seen. I'd also suggest moving the presentational aspects of the page into a
separate CSS file. Use <h1> and <h2> for your headings rather than ad hoc
type faces - they can be defined in the CSS to appear as they do now but the
text in <h1> and <h2> is credited more highly than the text as it now
stands.

And then it's a "get IBLs" campaign.



--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

"yRay" <yRay (AT) aol (DOT) com> wrote

On some hosting companies index.html is the main page and others
default.htm is the main page

I usually just work on index.html and have a batch file copy it to
default.htm so I don't have to bother knowing which site I'm working
on.

My question is does having to identical files with different names on
a web site hurt Google raking and by how much.


http:\\homebotics.com

Google will index what ever page is served by http://www.yoururl.com/
(usually the default is defined by your server) if that is index.html then
that is what will get indexed. If you have a duplicate of this page called
default.html google will not index it at all (unless there is a specific
link to it - in which case it will be seen as a spammy duplicate). If you
only have it there to cater for anyone who may just type the
url/default.html then it will not make any difference to google and it will
not be ranked or seen as spam.