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I heard that for SEO reasons one should use example.html for example.com domain as main page where user lands on start rather than index.html. Is it true? It doesn’t feel right for me but I want to be sure.
I heard that for SEO reasons one should use example.html for example.com domain as main page where user lands on start rather than index.html. Is it true? It doesn’t feel right for me but I want to be sure.
2
Answers
You are partially correct. It is not better just because people say so. It is better because it is easier to remember and offers users a better experience.
Think of it this way, the shorter the url, the easier it is to share, remember, copy, etc.
You asked about doing this for SEO reasons – there’s no real benefit directly to your seo. Google will ranking index.html and my-seo-keyword.html in the same place. The value of keyword rich URLs has diminished to almost nothing over the past 5 years.
It feels a bit spammy to me as well. A good rule of thumb is can you answer this question:
“This change not only benefits my SEO, but it’s also good for real humans too because…”
If you can answer that, you are generally all good. If you cannot, then I’d steer clear. Real humans would expect to find an index.html or a home.html, so I’d stay with them.
If something feels a bit spammy but is not currently against google’s rules then I’d still steer clear, as a future algorithm update will probably get you.
Finally I’d say you don’t need to worry too much about such small things in SEO – it’s the big main things that have real effect. Things like this have a pretty insignificant effect, so I’d not be too concerned.
Hope that helps!
Phil.