URLs with and without .html

Pronin

Newbie
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
39
Reaction score
4
Hi everyone!
Has anyone ever noticed the SEO difference when optimizing pages with and without .html in the end of the URL?
WP-wise, should I create pages and posts with or without .html? Is there any difference in ranking potential?

Thanks
 
URL with extension .html or .php won't make any difference in rankings. But people prefer going for non .html or .php versions because it looks good and clear. I feel if a site has .html for its pages like old school website and won't give much importance to that site.
If you are building a custom site or using joomla or durpal you will have .html as extension. You can remove those with the help of free modules.
 
I'm building the site on WP and thinking about the URL structure. Currently I consider the following options:
mysite.com/page
mysite.com/page/
mysite.com/page.html
mysite.com/page/child-page,
mysite.com/page/child-page/, and
mysite.com/page/child-page.html
So, will the trailing .html make any difference?
 
Google hates long links.

So having shorter and cleaner links theoretically gives you an advantage.
If you're working with a static html website just don't link your pages to the .html file, but the page folder.

For example:
"../custom-page/index.html" is BAD
"../custom-page/" is GOOD
 
So you guys suggest that the shorter the URL the better for google?
Does it mean that:
mysite.com/child-page/ is better than
mysite.com/page/child-page/
and
mysite.com/postname/ is better than
mysite.com/category/child-category/postname/ ?
 
URL with extension .html or .php won't make any difference in rankings. But people prefer going for non .html or .php versions because it looks good and clear. I feel if a site has .html for its pages like old school website and won't give much importance to that site.
If you are building a custom site or using joomla or durpal you will have .html as extension. You can remove those with the help of free modules.

Well...The post is informative ... and helps me to know the potentials of both non html and .html pages...!
 
can't delete the post.. unfortunately, i have posted 2 times ..

P.S : MOD can you please remove this post - TY
 
Last edited:
in the past .html were ranked better than .php, but since couple of years it is all same, so go with whatever way you are comfortable with, be it with .html or without
 
Ya..think is all the same..but i never really thought of this before...I only think of the triple w and non triple w.
 
Ok. and what about the URL length? is it better to have
mysite.com/category/subcategory/postname/ or
mysite.com/postname/ ?
 
Most of my non wordpress sites include the .html extension. They all rank fine. Just make sure your index page is redirecting to root.
 
There is nothing in difference between with or without html. You can make anyone if you like but make your URL should be simple.
 
I agree with people who say it does not matter. It's just a matter of how you name your file. I am actually a developer and even if you write same code in file.php and file.html, it is considered same but you can see that the extension is different but it is the stuff that matters i guess
 
I read in one course that google crawl those link with html easier than those who doesn't have.
 
Ok. and what about the URL length? is it better to have
mysite.com/category/subcategory/postname/ or
mysite.com/postname/ ?

If you have different category and subcategories then
mysite.com/category/subcategory/postname/
This is best. Here you are giving your user a very good experience and he knows exactly whr he is.
 
Ok. and what about the URL length? is it better to have
mysite.com/category/subcategory/postname/ or
mysite.com/postname/ ?

dont use links with more then 2 subfolders, I would prefer mysite.com/category/postname.html or mysite.com/category/postname/
 
Without the HTML is better SEO-wise.

The search engines take keywords from the url into account. Now the more words or characters there are in the url the weaker the power of a given keyword. The search engines take keywords from the url into account. It follows logically that there is no SEO advantage in adding '.html' at the end of the url.
 
Back
Top