Yes, you want to pick one canonical version and stick with it. And better to have it be extensionsless, which saves you having to redirect URL's in the future if a change in platform takes place.

Thanks for the input, i hadn't considered the extension aspect as well. Im switching them now. I don't think google returns a index.htm when i run a site: query so its probably not too big a deal. Should just benefit me if anything.

W

Ahh, I misunderstood your question. You're talking about relative URI's (index.htm) versus absolute URI's (http:www.example.com/).

The value of using the relative URI's is that they are easier to work with in dev. But especially if a site suffers from imperfect organization or structure, the SE's can get confused, so best practice is generally considered to be the absolute URI approach.

That said, I have sites that use relative URL's and don't see any evidence of issues ever having occured.

The other point I was making is that wherever possible, only link to the one canonical version of each page internally, and try to structure the site to avoid extensions. That way you won't have to redirect example.com/widgets/blue.htm to example.com/widgets/blue.php. If that URI were example.com/widgets/blue , you would never have to worry about a platform change. Did that once. Never again. ;-)

I think you understood me correctly before caveman. I was just talking about links to the index.htm page. I use relative links in my sites as well. I try and keep site structuring as straightforward as possible so I am not worried about the SE's getting confused by relatives.

Ward

Go with the shorter URL: "/" or "www.domain.com/"

Never link to a named index file filename.

Make sure that any such requests redirect back to the shorter URL.