SEO Tycoon

**andrew99** · 03-15-2009, 04:17 PM

I've been searching and have been getting lots of mixed opinions about this. I would love some suggestions.

1st question: To get maximum SEO benefits for a page, does it hurt to put it as an index.html page inside a directory such as in this example:

/mykeywordfolder/index.html

Or would it be better to have it such as:

/mykeywordfolder/mykeyword2.html

Or does it not really matter that much?

I just keep seeing that having the keyword in the text of the actual page name helps with SEO, so I didn't want to hurt anything by putting a lot of my pages as index.html inside directories.

2nd question: When creating the internal linking structure of my site, I also was concerned that linking to "just directories that have index.html pages" might not be as good as actually linking to the page inside the directory. Does this matter too much?

Many of the pages I am considering changing have no rank, so I don't think changing them would hurt me right now (loose previous ranking, etc).

Also, as far as link building on other sites,

mysite.com/mykeywordfolder/

seems to look a lot better than:

mysite.com/mykeywordfolder/mykeyword2.html

TV commercials use this all the time I guess because it looks better and it's easier to remember.

3rd question: Do search engines give as much relevance to external links on others sites that don't link to an actual page like this (link to just the directory that has an index.html page inside of it)?

Thanks for any tips.

**chrishirst** · 03-15-2009, 04:27 PM

1st answer:

Quote:

Or does it not really matter that much?

Correct.

2nd answer:

Quote:

Does this matter too much?

No. actually it doesn't matter at all.

3rd answer: No. relevance is nothing to do with the underlying URI structure. "Relevance" is from the anchor text.

Create your URI structure (Virtual or Real) around your site management, not some vague "SE benefit".
Any time you start doing "things" because "search engine like that" you will be starting down a route of forever changing it to cope with the latest fad or theory.
Do what is right for YOUR site and it's users. Oddly enough that same thing will work for SEs as well.

**andrew99** · 03-15-2009, 04:38 PM

Chris - thanks for the tips. One quick question about your response. In my first question, with your response "correct," are you suggesting that having the keyword in the actual filename is better that having the filename as index.html (inside of a directory), or does it not really matter that much?

In the way I will be creating the structure, the keyword will be included the directory name anyway (the directory that will have the index/html inside of it). Thanks again for the tips.

**chrishirst** · 03-15-2009, 04:54 PM

It really doesn't matter, keywords in the URL is such a minuscule factor with SEs it's really not worth spending any time or effort on it.

The anchor text is FAR FAR more valuable than the URI. However, if people link using the URI as anchor text it can be handy. BUT consider this when you are heading down that track.

**andrew99** · 03-15-2009, 05:30 PM

Thanks a lot - I think this clear up my questions.