# Htm Vs HTML



## ashras99

what's the difference between htm and html file extension of the webpage. There is any security or better features issue related to this. And which one is recommended.


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## etaf

i think its simply - (well this was the case in 1997 when i worked on both) 
htm = windows 
html = unix
so if the web server is a microsoft based the it uses .htm
if its based on unix its .html

but that may have changed now


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## ashras99

now, what is...both extensions will work on both servers.


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## Big-K

There really isnt much difference at all, except for one. Usually the main page of a website is called index. If thats the case, then it's usually a .html extension. I have my entire site stored in a folder(and subfolders) on this computer. The main site has one html file(the index), and the rest are htm. I also have 4 subfolders. 2 of them have entirely htm files and pic's. Another is all pics, and the other folder has its own index.html and some htm's. Other than that, it shouldnt really matter nowadays.

If you REALLY gotta know, try this
http://www.sightspecific.com/~mosh/WWW_FAQ/ext.html


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## Estreetloans

Hello,

I am new to the forum. Do you think it matters between htm and html for search engines and seo?

We use html for our pages, and we are redoing a lot of the site. I wouldnt want to change everything to html then find out htm is better.

Thanks!


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## cristobal03

Hey there, welcome to TSG.

SEO is a bit tricky. Are you (like most everyone else) trying to improve your Google PageRank? If so, you needn't worry about the extension for HTML files as long as you create a site index. Our site gets crawled into secured pages behind an SSL proxy and even dynamically built PHP pages. I bet even without a site index most search engines won't bat an eye at *.htm* versus *.html*.

HTH

chris.


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## Estreetloans

Thats a relief. Someone had suggested changing all the .html extensions to .htm. We have quite a few pages so that would have taken quite a bit of time. Always trying to improve our website to get crawled better.

I think we have a lot of great content but I seem to be doing something wrong. I appreciate the advice and any other seo type advice youd be willing to share I am all ears! :up:


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## WendyM

Hi Estreetloans,
There's really no difference - either is fine. The only thing to note is that your server likely has a default extension for the homepage. It's usually either "index.something" or "default.something". It could be .htm, .html, .asp, .php, etc. Before changing things, you should check which your server is configured to. I know that in IIS, you can tell it which one you want it to detect. On my server, I had index.htm pages that I ended up changing to index.asp. But I still retained index.htm for awhile in case people had it bookmarked. So on the server I bumped index.asp above index.htm in the default files so that people who just typed in the domain name would be directed to index.asp. It should be an easy thing for any server admin to do. If you're currently using .htm, I would just leave it as that. The .html doesn't gain you anything and doesn't make any difference to search engines.


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## cristobal03

[bump]

Also, just a tip: site moderators usually prefer we start new threads rather than bump (or resurrect) an old, archived thread. The best method is usually to start a new thread, state your question clearly, and link to the older thread you found.

But no worries, we all (especially new posters) get a few freebies 

chris.

[edit]
Huh, guess this wasn't a bump at all 
[/edit]


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## Estreetloans

Oh Sorry about that I didnt even realize this thread was from 2004! I did a quick search on google trying to find an answer and this forum was the first to pop up!

Ill will make sure I am in the right place next time. Thanks!


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## WendyM

Hee.  

One more tip, since we're giving tips and I forgot to say it before, changing from .html to .htm is also a bad idea because people may have subpages of your website bookmarked which won't work anymore when you change the extensions. Sometimes it's necessary because you decide to make dynamic pages (like asp or php) but in general, renaming pages is something that it's better to avoid.


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## cristobal03

And if it's a large site, editing all your internal links would be...painful. External links might break as well. But now that I say that, most servers (like Apache, for example) allow you to alias your file extensions (I _think_) so that requests for *.html* would actually point to *.htm*.

But I might be making that up.

The point is, yeah, don't bother. Your site'll get crawled. You should check out Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics if you want to seriously look into SEO for your site.

chris.


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