keyword.htm or www.domain.com/keyword/

can you guys help me out?

I found out that www.domain.com/keyword.htm ranks higher (or faster?) than a subdirectory www.domain.com/keyword/

is my observation correct or not? I would like to know whats the best in your opinion.

 

doesn't matter

 

I like "www.domain.com/keyword/", not for SEO though

 

Depends on which term you want the site to rank for really, whatever comes first gets more weight I beleive. (Not sure how much of a difference it makes, but there is an optimal title word press plug in which will put the keyword.mainsite.com instead of mainsite.com/keyword. So I am sure it makes some sense)

In other words it depends if you want the mainsite or the keyword to rank.

 

thank you for the replies.

I want the keyword to rank. The mainsite already has a top position.
From what I have experienced in the search engines keyword.htm immediately has a top position and /keyword/ comes in at page 2. But that can also have to do with the competition on that keyword and it was just coincidence.

keyword.domain.com is not an option (but I know it ranks better) since it is a subdomain and subdomains have to be promoted seperately again for regional serps results. (Europe = google.de, google.nl, google.gr etc)

If it does not matter I prefer /keyword/ because I like the url more.

More opinions on this?

 

why not www.domain.com/keyword/keyword1.htm
www.domain.com/keyword/keyword2.htm
I prefer www.domain.com/keyword/ ....You will have bunch of pages under it, and all will have the key term on their URL ...

Thanks

 

mmm.. i read about 1 year ago on a seo book that for pagerank issues, its better /keyword/ instead of keyword.htm.

 

Hmm interesting, anyone else have any thoughts on this?

 

keyword placement in URL doesn't really matter to SE spiders.. some sites ranks for certain keywords that are not present in their URL (i.e wikipedia, imdb, etc. )

 

IMO it does help, gg used the phrases in url, definitely a possible high ranking you can get.

 

It won't help in any way shape or form. Think about the issue from an information architecture perspective, not an SEO one.

 

Question; How many people will link to a directory in comparison to a page? As Dan said, this needs to be dealt with from the IA perspective and SEO will follow.

 

What about subdomain:

keyword.domain.com

 

The subdomain would be treated by the search engines as an entirely different site if you do that, gsh1010.

 

Thanks for the reply Dan,

Each subdomain would be an individual mini site linked backed to the primary site. Unique home page, content, links, and CSE.

The purpose is to increase my Google ad quality. My only concern is possible penalization.

-G

 

It woudn't work. First off, you'd have what's called a "diminishing rate of returns" since you'd have to put in far more work on each "site" than the results you'd get from that wasted effort (in other words, it would not only be better to, but you'd also get better results from keeping everything on one "site"). Second, you'd have multiple "sites" cross-linking to each other being hosted on the same IP address, which would lead to a penalty (probably being banned). But I don't work for a search engine, and I avoid such wasteful practices anyway, so I wouldn't know first-hand what the result would be (aside from wasted time).

 

Thanks again Dan,

www.domain.com/keyword.htm makes most sense for this application as I have unique content that generates each keyword.

BTW, this was for specific use in Googol Ads

-g

 

I would go with http://www.domain.com/keyword/. What if, sometime in the future, you need to change the file extension? Add an ssi (perhaps a piece of affiliate program's ad code) to the page? You'll have to rename it to .shtml, .php or something else. Sure there are ways to even make dynamic pages have .html urls but you can save yourself the trouble by going with a url that doesn't specify the extension.

 

Good point eXe.

Now I need to think about the structure.

Example:

domain.com/new_york_auto_repair/brooklyn_auto_service.htm
domain.com/new_york_auto_repair/bronx_auto_service.htm

OR

domain.com/brooklyn_auto_repair/auto_service.htm
domain.com/bronx_auto_repair/auto_service.htm

 

I'd go with domain.com/new_york_auto_repair/brooklyn_auto_service.htm but I believe the url can be shortened.


domain.com/new-york-brooklyn/auto-service-auto-repair.htm

You might also be interested in this:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/