my inner pages have /index.php/xxx.html Does this affect SEO?

Hi, I came across an observation recently and was wondering if it was affecting my SEO. My subpages aren't /xxx. They are /index.php/xxx.html What that means is that my site is www[dot]doggroomingworld[dot]com/index.php/doggroomingequipment.html.

Would it be better if it didn't have the index.php in the middle? If so, how can I get rid of it.

Thanks!

 

that should be fine.... I always seperate my keywords in my url with a-line-in-between-all-words.

 

seoindetroit you obviously didn't read his question. You'd be better off to slow down in your rush to get more links.

buckknife1, I think you should get rid of the index.php in the middle of the urls. For one, it makes your urls messier and not as appealing or easy to remember. Secondly, Google doesn't like extra long urls.

I think somewhere in your hosting control panel settings or if your ftp you had made a index.php folder. If you can't figure out how to remove it, you should contact your web host.

 

Did you recently make a change to your site, because Google still has pages indexed that don't have the index.php in the middle, and they seem to prefer those pages.
Google search: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGIC_enUS249US249&q=dog+grooming+world&btnG=Search

In fact, none of the pages they have indexed have index.php in the middle:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGIC_enUS249US249&q=+site:www.doggroomingworld.com+dog+grooming+world

I would definitely recommend removing it and putting those urls back the way they were. These will affect your SEO in 2 ways:
First, you're changing the URL's that are already indexed in Google, and they haven't been 301 redirected so they just go to 404 pages (Page Not Found).
Second, the shorter the URL, the better. Google will give you a lot of credit for having keywords in your URL but the longer the URL is, the less weight your keyword gets. Even with the index.php in there, they're still short, but every little bit helps, so I'd recommend taking it out.

Now you're probably wondering how to get rid of the index.php. This is just a guess, but if you ftp into your site I think you'll find an index.php folder in there that you accidentally put all of your files into. You'll want to go 1 folder up and put all the files in there instead. If you don't know what you're doing, and it's imperative that the site doesn't go down, I would make sure to have your web designer or someone in the know do it. At a minimum, copy all the files over to your computer as a backup before you start messing around.

Hopefully this helps!

Chad
Netmark Essentials

 

Well, its probably the rewrite tool, that you are using, I see the index.php in the Joomla rewrite tools, so you should change its settings to use the .htacess if this is the case.
And I believe that it does not affect your rankings, because google just recently told that they do not care about it.
On the other hand it is true, that the URLs are less invitable to clicks, so if you have not done a lot of linking and marketing, and you have a new site, change it ASAP and start the linking.

 

thanks for the help. Does anyone know how to get rid of it? I'm having a lot of difficulty.

 

I see you are using Wordpress, what kind of rewrite engine do you use on it? AFAIK the default rewrite does not put the index.php into the URL's

 

how do I find out?

 

Just tell us, what have you done, to get the links rewritten..
And btw, by the new google information, this does not affect the SERP, because google says that they dont have any problems with such links

 

I will also suggest to remove the index.php in your url (middle)...for you url to look neat and having a shorter url will also help you...