Which homepage URL is better?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by makeit easy, Aug 2, 2009.

  1. #1
    My sites have 3 different homepage URLs:

    domain.com
    domain.com/
    domain.com/index.php

    All these URL's shows the same page, homepage.
    I suspect that these URLs can affect SERPs negatively because of the content duplication.

    What do you think about this?
     
    makeit easy, Aug 2, 2009 IP
  2. vstar

    vstar Well-Known Member

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    #2
    There is no problem having the three, however, it is important that you only use one of them when acquiring backlinks... I would only use domain.com
     
    vstar, Aug 2, 2009 IP
  3. makeit easy

    makeit easy Active Member

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    #3
    Me too. But I can not redirect index.php to domain.com.
    If I use domain.com, domain.com/index.php stays live.

    I can redirect domain.com to domain.com/index.php. But this seems to me not user friendly. Because some visitors might want to see domain.com on their browsers' address bar to be sure on where they are.
     
    makeit easy, Aug 2, 2009 IP
  4. belajar SEO

    belajar SEO Peon

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    #4
    Yes I agree vstar that it is better that you only optimize one of them. domain.com is the best
     
    belajar SEO, Aug 2, 2009 IP
  5. guyco

    guyco Guest

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    #5
    Hi,

    your domain name is (( domain.com )) which you should use for all advertising, marketing or whatever. The other pages are not your official domain.
     
    guyco, Aug 2, 2009 IP
  6. makesyouclick

    makesyouclick Peon

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    #6
    Build all your links as anchors pointing to hXXp://domain.com regarding homepage. Use the same anchor inside your website every time you wish to link to the homepage. Add a .htaccess rule to enforce www or non-www (whatever you prefer).
     
    makesyouclick, Aug 2, 2009 IP
  7. elenabush

    elenabush Peon

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    #7
    domain.com is correct for seo view.
     
    elenabush, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  8. babynl

    babynl Member

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    #8
    i always use
    domain.com/
     
    babynl, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  9. Maximise

    Maximise Member

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    #9
    Use domain.com

    And use canonical tags to indicate the one true URL
     
    Maximise, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  10. UKDomains

    UKDomains Member

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    #10
    I prefer using domain.com as well. Probably just because I'm too lazy to type www all the time
    lol
     
    UKDomains, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  11. oliveir3

    oliveir3 Peon

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    #11
    domain.com is the one I would use.
     
    oliveir3, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  12. kirin

    kirin Peon

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    #12
    sometimes I use domain.com/ ..means that I will loose some backlinks already.. this is not good..
     
    kirin, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  13. babynl

    babynl Member

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    #13
    this is untrue you can use any form you want it does not matter what you use.
     
    babynl, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  14. justkidding

    justkidding Active Member

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    #14
    justkidding, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  15. willybfriendly

    willybfriendly Peon

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    #15
    domain.com

    internally resolves to

    domain.com/

    They are the same page. You can save some server overhead by redirecting everything to the domain.com/ version.

    As far as domain.com/index.php - the SE's will see this as a distinct URL which might result in duplicate content issues. Best practice would be to redirect it to domain.com/
     
    willybfriendly, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  16. HighRankingSEO

    HighRankingSEO Well-Known Member

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    #16
    301 everything to the canonical version...Like a lot of folks before me have said, you lose your link juice when you have 3-4 dif. versions of your site....sure, it may not be dif. in your eyes, but to a search engine they are all their own sites......

    301 all of other versions to the version you like best (i.e. www.whatever.com)....it is called canonicalization...here is an article to help you http://www.highrankingseo.net/url-canonicalization/

    good luck
     
    HighRankingSEO, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  17. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #17
    Here is my post on a thread about the identical thing a few days ago (August 1st):

     
    Canonical, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  18. makeit easy

    makeit easy Active Member

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    #18
    Thanks for the replies.

    Is there any difference between "www.example.com" and "www.example.com/" ?

    If yes, how can I redirect ""www.example.com" to ""www.example.com/" ?

    By the way I found this code:
    RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.example.com/ [R=301,L]
    Code (markup):
    It seems working but I am not sure if it is the best.
     
    makeit easy, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  19. willybfriendly

    willybfriendly Peon

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    #19
    From the Apache URL Rewriting Guide:

    "Every webmaster can sing a song about the problem of the trailing slash on URLs referencing directories. If they are missing, the server dumps an error, because if you say /~quux/foo instead of /~quux/foo/ then the server searches for a file named foo. And because this file is a directory it complains. Actually it tries to fix it itself in most of the cases, but sometimes this mechanism need to be emulated by you. For instance after you have done a lot of complicated URL rewritings to CGI scripts etc."

    Thus my previous post. example.com and example.com/ are one and the same - except...

    Best practice is to include the trailing slash.
     
    willybfriendly, Aug 3, 2009 IP
  20. babynl

    babynl Member

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    #20
    true thats why i always add it
     
    babynl, Aug 4, 2009 IP