index.html and duplicate SEO issues

[Stereo Steve]

It seems to me that most actinic websites and the main URL www.website.co.uk/ and also an identical page at www.website.co.uk/index.html. Google hardly ever indexes the latter one but I've noticed that it often has page rank, in our case, a toolbar page rank equal to the main URL.

So, what's going on here? Is this page nicking page rank from the main page and should it be got rid of? Why is it there and how is it generated?

I know that having www and non www pages can cause big problems and I've read some stuff on index.html but can't get any clear info.

Any thoughts? I did try editing my .ht... file to set a 301 and redirect it to the main URL but it just threw up server errors on both URL's.

[Stereo Steve]

While we're on the subject, I can also view my site without the www altogether. Should I be concerned about this?

[leehack]

With PR, shop top page is usually 1 less on PR than the home page IME.

I don't see anything wrong with being able to access your site as non-www, your main concerns in this area are to set up actinic with the full www version and to also tell search engines which version you want to use.

[Stereo Steve]

I'm just struggling to understand how I came to have .co.uk/ when the home page is set to co.uk/index.html. Why is it there and should I be concerned that they are identical? They both have a similar toolbar page rank.

I have set webmaster tools to use the ".co.uk/" version and it does so and indexes this page and not the .co.uk/index.html. If I should be concerned, how do I get rid of .co.uk/index.html and have the home page just set to .co.uk/

Back to the user guide I think.

Oh, and what about mod rewrites to 301 all 'non www' to 'www' ? I notice SVP have this on their non www site. If you put the www in it just redirects back. Good, bad or a waste of energy?

[RuralWeb]

It seems to me that most actinic websites

In truth ALL html based websites have an index.html or htm page - it the way things work

[leehack]

Sorry i misread your post, i thought you was referring to site root plus shop top, you are in fact just talking about the main home page.

They are the essentially the same thing, the main part is that if i go straight to your .co.uk/ it finds the index page for me by default OR i can go direct to the page by typing it in. It's all to do with the pages that are checked for (by default) when you put in a URL with no page name, index pages are searched for by default at folder level.

I never have a link to index.html or index.htm as the home page link on my sites, because someone accessing your root, will lose all viewed states on links etc. when they access your index.html page - even though they are the same thing!

Having a 301 in place - i see no problem at all - probably a good idea.

[marke]

Am I missing somtheing or are website.co.uk and website.co.uk/index.html not in fact the same page rather than duplicates. So far as I understand, when the web server is set up you set a default home page. This usually means that the web server will usually interprete /index.html as where you mean when you type in website.co.uk. I think that for most hosts, the server is set up to recognise, for example, /index.html, /index.htm and if you are microsoft then default.html or default.html. Then I think about PHP pages and that actually makes me think that index.anything may be OK. In principle you can set any file name to appear when you just type website.co.uk but there are a number which site builders usually use by default.
Whatever, the point is that I think both pages are in fact the same page and that although they show up as different pages in Google, Google is wise enough to know that in this particular case they are the same because you have to name the home page something.
May be wrong about this but thats my understanding!

[leehack]

You are absolutely right Mark, they are exactly the same page and Google is certainly clever enough to know this. The main point to note is that your browser will treat them both as different pages, which is where you lose link states etc. even though it's an identical page.

PR should be identical on both as you are looking at exactly the same page.

[RuralWeb]

Am I missing somtheing

Not at all - its just steve off on another SEO wild goose chase

[leehack]

Not at all - its just steve off on another SEO wild goose chase

LOL, poor Steve and his SEO quest.

[Stereo Steve]

OK, I'm starting to get it. So no big deal for SEO then.

Lee, you mean you set all your 'home' and clickable logo etc. links to www.site.co.uk? They are defaulted to www.site.co.uk/index.html. I have actually done this on the logo and top home link but I notice the sidebar home link is still index.html.

I guess they should all be set to the one that google indexes? In my case .co.uk/

As for the rewrite, I used this in .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^website.co.uk
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.website.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

Obviously replacing 'website' with the URL. You need an apache server for this one I think and you may need to turn something on at their end but it just worked for me. You type in the url http://website.com and it takes you straight to http:/www.website.com and also works for all url's on the site which is pretty handy. So you type http://website.com/acatalog/puple-y-fronts.html and it redirects automatically to http://www.website.com/acatalog/puple-y-fronts.html

Thats got to be a good thing hasn't it? All those non www pages have page rank after all.

[RuralWeb]

poor Steve and his SEO quest

At least he keeps us entertained.

[RuralWeb]

Thats got to be a good thing hasn't it?

OMG - its a duck hunt now

[Stereo Steve]

Hey, I have actually taken on a local hotshoe who is reviewing the site as we speak and will consult with me next week. He's not flash and he's a good solid guy so I'm going the pro route after all.

Just figured he'd be up tonight working on it so I thought I'd start fiddling with .htaccess so he earns his money.

[leehack]

I never (i'm sure, there is one or two to prove that wrong here and there, but....) link to the index.html file, i never even write in the URL, but i cannot discuss this in the forum as Jonty starts arguing with me. You can find it out by looking at the source code on my home page, i've laid it out neatly so you can read it.

A 301 rewrite can have no real adverse effect on anything at all as far as i know, so would certainly seem sensible if that's what floats your boat.