Set the opening webpage on your web site without harming your SEO

Sometimes you want a different opening page on your website from the default index.html that you normally get. Perhaps your Content Management System demands a different opening page or maybe you have put your website it a sub-directory. So how do you do this?

Using Redirect Will Harm our SEO Efforts

Well the most obvious option might be to use a redirect. That means anyone coming in on the root of the site would be redirected to the correct file of sub-directory. But this option comes at a price.

Rumour has it that using a redirect in your .htaccess will reduce your ranking position with Google by 10%. Sometimes you have no choice but to set a different page, or directory, as you home page on your website but by using redirect you are harming your SEO. So what other options do you have?

Use DirectoryIndex Instead

Well, you could use the DirectoryIndex command instead. This will then show the page that you specify when someone lands on your website. A perfect solution if you want to show a different file than the default index.html that Apache will select on the root of your webserver. Question is, how do you implement it?

How To Use DirectoryIndex

If you have been using redirects then turning to DirectoryIndex will be really easy for you.

The DirectoryIndex directive sets the list of resources to look for, when the client requests an index of the directory by specifying a / at the end of the directory name. Local-url is the (%-encoded) URL of a document on the server relative to the requested directory; it is usually the name of a file in the directory. Several URLs may be given, in which case the server will return the first one that it finds. If none of the resources exist and the Indexes option is set, the server will generate its own listing of the directory.