Google: We Rank /page & /page.html Separately If Content Is Different

Jul 11, 2017 - 7:57 am 3 — by

Google Cluster

As many of you know, since you are advanced technical SEOs, /page and /page.html technically are different URLs and different pages. But often, web servers are configured to make the page the same, so if you go to /page or /page.html, either you get redirected to one or the other OR you see the same content on both pages.

But since they are technically different pages, if /page and /page.html have completely different content - then Google technically can rank those pages separately for different keywords.

Gary Illyes from Google confirmed this on Twitter recently:

As long as the content is different enough, sure - Google can index and rank both.

But it is probably recommended you don't play those games and keep things as simple and consistent as possible. Use a different URL for different content and redirect one to the other in this example above.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

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