SaranacLake 4 Posted Thursday at 06:33 AM Share Posted Thursday at 06:33 AM (edited) Not sure where to post. For my temporary website, I am trying to figure out the best way to name HTML files. I read that Google gives you points for naming image files after what they are (e.g. "dinosaur.jpeg"). Does the same apply to HTML (and PHP) files? For instance, would there be any benefit as far as SEO goes if a file was named this... a.) "table-20-005-unemployed-workers-by-state.html" b.) "table-20-005.html" c.) "123456.html" Edited Thursday at 06:35 AM by SaranacLake Quote Link to post Share on other sites
requinix 960 Posted Thursday at 06:40 AM Share Posted Thursday at 06:40 AM 5 minutes ago, SaranacLake said: I read that Google gives you points for naming image files after what they are (e.g. "dinosaur.jpeg"). Urban myth. Google does not care. People care. People like it when they see a picture of a dinosaur and there's the word "dinosaur" somewhere in that magic box on top of the screen where they type stuff and Google searches for it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SaranacLake 4 Posted Thursday at 02:57 PM Author Share Posted Thursday at 02:57 PM 8 hours ago, requinix said: Urban myth. Google does not care. People care. People like it when they see a picture of a dinosaur and there's the word "dinosaur" somewhere in that magic box on top of the screen where they type stuff and Google searches for it. So then I guess it is best to name my PHP and HTML files what works best for me then, right? (On this temporary site, for speed, I am just doing manual pages - with no PHP or database-driven content - to create things, and I have come up with a naming convention to more easily organize things. For instance, I am publishing a lot of tables with data, so having a naming convention will make it easier for me to find and update stuff while I , in parallel, finish my real site.) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
requinix 960 Posted Thursday at 06:30 PM Share Posted Thursday at 06:30 PM Yes. The content and structure of the page matters far more than its URL. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SaranacLake 4 Posted Thursday at 06:56 PM Author Share Posted Thursday at 06:56 PM 25 minutes ago, requinix said: Yes. The content and structure of the page matters far more than its URL. Ok, thanks. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
guymclarenza 2 Posted Sunday at 10:46 AM Share Posted Sunday at 10:46 AM (edited) It may be an urban myth but over the years I have found that I get better results with keyword rich URLs. 1.html will never be as good as keyword.html. Also very long URLs don't work as well as concise ones. a_keyword_rich_phrase_with_a_description.html will under perform keyword_rich.html. This is in my experience and has no scientific data to support it. Content is way more important than this, Good content will always perform better than poor content no matter what naming convention you use. Edited Sunday at 10:51 AM by guymclarenza Quote Link to post Share on other sites
benanamen 130 Posted Sunday at 05:12 PM Share Posted Sunday at 05:12 PM As far as file names, what DOES make a difference is underscore and dash to separate words. As simple search proves this out. On google search fast_cars and see returned result count, then try fast-cars. I get 13,000,000 results and 1,600,000,000 respectively Bottom line, use dashes as the separator. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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