Help: Google forgot ".htlml" in my site? or is it me?

[Rayson14]

One of my sites has a problem in the SERP's. Anyone can give me a solution?
Here's my stat
KW: Keyword112
URL:"http://www.mysite.com/keyword112.html"

When I search for google for e.g "Keyword112"

My page is on top1 postion. but WTF?! when I click on it
it it takes me to a 404 page and when I look in the URL .html is missing!

In the SERP's My site is http://www.mysite.com/keyword112
but it should look like this http://www.mysite.com/keyword112.html
suggestions? my backlinking I know is correct and I have double checked most of them again.

Can you help me with this?




To the mods. I repost this in the SEO forums as well cause i don;t know where to post this up. PLease delete the incorrect one. Thanks!

[paulgl]

The easiest solution is to do a 301 redirect from bad to good.

Problem solved. But only for that one page.

Then you can do a little deeper digging.

Are you using wordpress? You may have some settings that
are leaving the extension off. You need to change the
permalink structure to add the .html.

Google will most likely index whatever wordpress does,
whether or not the real page has the .html or not.

If you recently fiddled with them, and have them right, the
problem may go away.

Paul

[InternetMarketingIQ]

".htlml" NICE!

Fix your 404 to send them somewhere.

Your problem appears to be that Google is indexing multiple URL's to specific pages.

Canonicalization.

This is now an old article: SEO advice: url canonicalization

But worth reading. If your page is appearing with multiple URL's you need to figure out where the problem is and fix it. You can also "suggest" to Google which page is correct in a couple of different ways including Tags in your Header and Google Webmaster. Best way is to fix in your Software and be consistent.

[UMS]

Would be easier to give you an answer if you posted your real URL.

[dtang4]

You probably have done some SEO work w/ the mistyped URL.

The 301 redirect is the easiest fix.

Then, continue to build backlinks to the correct URL and google will update it accordingly.

[paulgl]

Come on people. There's no mis-indexing by google.
Think logically. If you left the .html off, and that page
did not exist, then NOTHING would be indexed!!!!

It's not google indexing multiple urls.
That's no problem anyway.
It's not link building.

Re-read the post.

The problem is a settings problem. I'm guessing wordpress.

Your systems are not presenting your urls with a .html.
Simple.

If it's only one page, the 301 works and works beautifully.

If it's a system wide problem, you have to set your link
structure to present your urls with the extension.

Yes, it will require a little work on your part.

Not only for wordpress, but any CMS that sets urls.

It may be a canonical problem, but tweaked by the settings.

It makes google think the url you want indexed and shown
is the one without the .html.

You have to change this setting. Period.

No other BS needed.

Paul

[gtk29]

I think paulgl has hit the head of the nail. But you should also check google webmaster tools and see if you have any crawl errors. Then investigate further.

[Rayson14]

Guys,

Thanks a lot for the input. Checked the permalink its
/%postname%.html/

So its correct right?

The SEO is correct and I'm sure of that. Because I put all the links I used in 1 folder "Day 1 - site etc etc" to keep me organized and I need this so I can index 95% of the links. So I have my own record of my backlinks as in All of them and none has the has the problem with the html.

I also tried a 301 redirect via hostgator and the site doesn't load at all. Can you help me with this Paul?

I investigated further. And got into webmaster tools.. The keyword have 3500 impressions and when I click on it It has the same problem. .html missing. I have not uploaded any sitemaps here cause I'm using a All in one Sitemap on Wordpress.

Anything yuou can suggest to me after all these facts?

Thanks a lot for everyone who replied! Thanks a lot!

[paulgl]

That permalink structure looks okay.

If the 301 does not work, and it is just one page, you
can add the <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/keyword.html"/>
to the <head>. That will tell google your preferred link is the html one.

It may take a while to be indexed, and google may not think it is the best one.

That's what you are up against. Getting google to recognize the one
with the .html

You may need to get a permalink redirect plugin or something.

Somewhere you have a problem in the settings. It may be something
that needs a mod rewrite, or it could even be simpler. Wish I could
help more, but I would try the band aid approach as described first.

You might not have set up your 301 correctly. If you have cpanel,
they make it as easy as typing.

Paul

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Rayson14

Guys,

Thanks a lot for the input. Checked the permalink its
/%postname%.html/

So its correct right?

The SEO is correct and I'm sure of that. Because I put all the links I used in 1 folder "Day 1 - site etc etc" to keep me organized and I need this so I can index 95% of the links. So I have my own record of my backlinks as in All of them and none has the has the problem with the html.

I also tried a 301 redirect via hostgator and the site doesn't load at all. Can you help me with this Paul?

I investigated further. And got into webmaster tools.. The keyword have 3500 impressions and when I click on it It has the same problem. .html missing. I have not uploaded any sitemaps here cause I'm using a All in one Sitemap on Wordpress.

Anything yuou can suggest to me after all these facts?

Thanks a lot for everyone who replied! Thanks a lot!

IMO get rid of the .html (you don't need it).

Do this /%postname%/

[Rayson14]

Originally Posted by paulgl

That permalink structure looks okay.

If the 301 does not work, and it is just one page, you
can add the <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/keyword.html"/>
to the <head>. That will tell google your preferred link is the html one.

It may take a while to be indexed, and google may not think it is the best one.

That's what you are up against. Getting google to recognize the one
with the .html

You may need to get a permalink redirect plugin or something.

Somewhere you have a problem in the settings. It may be something
that needs a mod rewrite, or it could even be simpler. Wish I could
help more, but I would try the band aid approach as described first.

You might not have set up your 301 correctly. If you have cpanel,
they make it as easy as typing.

Paul

I'll try to look for more solutions first pual before doing the canonical. All my backlinking efforts might go to waste if I do this and I don't want that to happen. It took me 5 hours a day in 37 days straight for this site alone with all the The software part is easy, AMR daily, BMd all links, And few softwares for indexing. but the edu's linkwheels, pressreleases are all manual and **** if google takes that away... Can you point me more Paul on a different approach?

Originally Posted by yukon

IMO get rid of the .html (you don't need it).

Do this /%postname%/

Thanks yukon for the suggestion. So what will happen to my backlinks if I remove the .html?

Thanks!

[InternetMarketingIQ]

"It's not google indexing multiple urls.
That's no problem anyway."

Clearly this advice is BAD... BAD... BAD

This is straight from the mouth of Google. Google can and does index multiple URL's leading to the same page. Thus the Term Canonical URL. But if you want to spew bad advice go for it. That's what is found in most reply's in Forums.

Q: What is a canonical url? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway?
A: Sorry that it’s a strange word; that’s what we call it around Google. Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

* IANA &mdash; Example domains
* example.com/
* IANA &mdash; Example domains
* example.com/home.asp

But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set.

The most common occurrence is the choice between www. or not.

And speaking of BAD ADVICE

"IMO get rid of the .html (you don't need it)."

While you may not NEED it, it's advisable because not everyone uses CMS'. You have to think about how the average person would create an unsolicited link back to your site. Many people would link using the .html extension because it's a common practice. There is no penalty for including it. Back links that are consistent matter.

This is my preferred custom permalink structure. And it works, and my sites rank. But you can choose to believe what you want. Most of these people do not understand beyond a superficial level what they are doing, and even less understand why they are doing it.


/%postname%.html

[Rayson14]

Originally Posted by InternetMarketingIQ

"It's not google indexing multiple urls.
That's no problem anyway."

Clearly this advice is BAD... BAD... BAD

This is straight from the mouth of Google. Google can and does index multiple URL's leading to the same page. Thus the Term Canonical URL. But if you want to spew bad advice go for it. That's what is found in most reply's in Forums.

Q: What is a canonical url? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway?
A: Sorry that it’s a strange word; that’s what we call it around Google. Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

* IANA &mdash; Example domains
* example.com/
* IANA &mdash; Example domains
* example.com/home.asp

But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set.

The most common occurrence is the choice between www. or not.

And speaking of BAD ADVICE

"IMO get rid of the .html (you don't need it)."

While you may not NEED it, it's advisable because not everyone uses CMS'. You have to think about how the average person would create an unsolicited link back to your site. Many people would link using the .html extension because it's a common practice. There is no penalty for including it. Back links that are consistent matter.

This is my preferred custom permalink structure. And it works, and my sites rank. But you can choose to believe what you want. Most of these people do not understand beyond a superficial level what they are doing, and even less understand why they are doing it.


/%postname%.html

Thanks buddy for a great input Liked it buddy. Just one question.

What can you suggest I do about this issue? Tried to resolved it myself and tried to remove the .html but it doesn't work because of my WPsimplicity plugin in wordpress.