Are these consider the same page or two different pages?

Does Google consider these same page or two different pages?

www.mydomain.com/

and

www.mydomain.com/index.html

 

Those are two (2) separate and unique URLs.

 

So these two pages could be flagged as duplicate content by Google? I have many pages like this:

www.mydomain.com/widget/

and

www.mydomain.com/widget/index.html

 

Also, they are consider two unique and different pages when I do link exchange or anchor text? Eventhough they reach the same page?

www.mydomain.com/widget/
www.mydomain.com/widget/index.html

 

At all times these are considered two (2) separate and unique URLs. Even if they reach the same page.

 

When it comes to an index page; never link to it using www.mydomain.com/widget/index.html

Always use www.mydomain.com/widget/

 

Oh no.. I've been linking it to www.mydomain.com/widget/index.html

is there a reason why I should not?

 

Because the mydomain.com/widget/index.html page will be cached as well as mydomain.com/widget/ giving you two pages indexed with the exact same content.

 

As well as the dupe content thing; your server is setup to automatically open the index page, there's no reason to. And; to me this is the most important; but if I want to change the .html extension; the se's will automatically pick it up for the index page..

 

Yes, GG just posted that you should use the example cited.

use...
www.mydomain.com/
www.mydomain.com/widget/

It was noted that although the above was preferred, this is acceptable too.

mydomain.com/
mydomain.com/widget/

 

Thanks guys for the information.

However, I just checked the page: www.mydomain.com/widget/index.html and www.mydomain.com/widget/ in Google

Both points to the same page (and in Cache) in Google:

www.mydomain.com/widget/

and both have the same PR.

so it doesn't look like I'm being penalized. It's also is top 5 ranked for the keyword.

 

So www is actually preferred by google?