Http://domainame/brooklyn or http://domainame/brooklyn.html; is there a difference?

[jimmy0225]

I understand that for SEO purposes you would use a 301 redirect, form either www. or no www., because SE's see them as two distinct sites and you are splitting your links; do SE's see extentions .html as two (2) sites also? for example: http://domainname/brooklyn or http://domainame/brooklyn.html.  Are the search engines also treating them as two (2) sites?  Any assistance would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

James

[ThompsonPaul]

Yes James, the search engines will treat http://domainname/brooklyn and http://domainname/brooklyn.html as two separate pages which will compete against each other for rankings and as duplicate content.

The Search Engines go very specifically by each character in a URL. Therefore even http://domainname/brooklyn will be considered a separate page from http://domainname/brooklyn/ (Note the trailing slash at the end.)

ANY character that is different in the URL will denote a separate page, as far as the SEs are concerned.

Paul

[Martin_Harris]

Yes, as Paul has suggested any additional characters in the URL will be seen by Google as a separate page. If it's identical home page content you could see canonicalisation issues and as you have already suggested, a 301 re-direct/ rel canonical would be the best practice.

[ThompsonPaul]

Hey Jimmy - it's been a while since you posted your question. Did you get the answers you needed or can you give us further clarification of what you're still wondering about?

If you did get the answers you needed, could you mark as  "Good Answer" whichever answers you found most helpful and mark the overall question as answered? This will help other users who may come across the question in the future.

Thanks!

Paul