Directory Structure, File Naming & Page File Extensions

    In order for your site to be organized, you need to arrange all your pages into folders. Your search engine will crawl through directories, too. So it is very likely that if you have done your SEO right, even the sub-pages of your website can be listed among the top ranks.
It is recommended that you limit the tiers or number of sub-directories that you will create. For example, one sub-directory can have several pages in it, but don’t put any more sub-directories further below it. Your URL will come out like this for example:

http://www.mainsite.com/subdirectory1/page1.html

This makes it much easier for search engines to crawl over your site, as compared to creating pages like this:

http://www.mainsite.com/sub 1/sub 1-2/sub 1-2-1/page1.html

    At the minimum, if your site is small, keep to two to three subdirectories. As some web experts call it, maintain a flat directory, that is, with the minimum sub-directories or levels as possible. This also makes your site more navigable.

File Naming

    Naming the files and pages on your site is just as important as deciding on what name to use for your domain. Again, the big thing to remember here is the right kind of keywords. How can you do that? Keyword research is the answer, and there is a chapter that explains the tools for that task in detail.

    Going back to naming your files, remember that whatever page you add to your site can be indexed by search engines. If you play your keywords right, your site can appear among the top listings, even if the keywords are in the subdirectories or the filenames of your website.

    For example, if you are selling baby items like socks and shoes on your site, it will be unwise to name your products as so:

http://www.baby-shoes-online.com/product1.html

    It would have been better to use smarter keywords in this regards, so that your site and your products are more SEO-friendly. Example:

http://www.baby-shoes-online.com/cotton-socks.html

    Also, as in domain naming, it is better to use hyphens (-) instead of underscores, and try to limit the number of words in your file names to less than five if possible.

Page File Extensions

    What are page file extensions? Are they the same as filenames? Are there rules that need to be applied when using page file extensions in order for search engine optimization to be possible? Here is a little info to help you answer those questions.

    Page file extensions are actually part of filenames. They are the letters found after the period following the filename. Page file extensions are used to name web pages that belong to a website. An example of a page file extension is “html” in this URL:

http://www.sample.com/sample.html

    It used to be believed that some search engines can discriminate or prefer one form of file extension over another. However, many sources today claim that whether the page file extensions is .html, .htm, .asp, .php, or others, they will all be crawled by spiders just the same.
File name extensions with .htm or .html refer to static pages, while others may mean dynamic pages or those created through different computer languages. Here is an explanation of what some of these page file extensions mean:

.asp – Stands for “Active Server Pages” for Microsoft.net.
.cfm – Stands for “ColdFusion” extension, which was developed by Adobe Systems.
.php – PHP is a computer language developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994.
.jsp – Are JavaServer Pages which also use HTML or XML languages

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