.html or /example/ which is better?

Lets do a couple of test:

Test 1 - go to google and do a search for Thomas Jefferson. Out of about 16,200,000 results, the top 3 results are:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/thomasjefferson
monticello.org/

Notice that none of the first results have the .html extension.

Its not until about the 5th and 6th result that we see the first .html result.

brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_jefferson.html
sc94.ameslab.gov/tour/tjefferson.html

But then the results go back to the / without the .html extension

etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/
memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/
millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/jefferson
jefferson.edu/

Out of 10+ results for Thomas Jefferson on the first page of google - news, images, websites,,, only 2 had the .html extension.

Test 2 - A search for George Washington shows similar results, with only 1 page in the top ten with .html.

Test 3 - a search of google for the word news - not a single result on the first page uses the .html extension.

Do your own test with popular keywords and draw your own conclusion.

But it appears to me that / outranks .html.