Should you use htm or html file extension What is the difference and which file is correct

Question

What is the difference between the  htm and  html file extension  Why there are two of them  Which is correct

User · Answer

If you plan on putting the files on a machine supporting only 8 3 naming convention  you should limit the extension to 3 characters   Otherwise  better choose the more descriptive  html version

User · Answer

Since nowadays  computers support widely any length as file type  the choice is now only personal  Back in the early days of Windows where only 3 letters where supported  you had to use  htm  but not anymore

User · Answer

Same thing   makes no difference at all    htm was used in the days where only 3 letter extensions were common

User · Answer

It s the same in terms of functionality and support   most OS recognize both  most Search Engines recognize both   For my everyday use  I choose  htm because it s shorter to type by 25

User · Answer

The short answer  There is none  They are exactly the same   The long answer  Both  htm and  html are exactly the same and will work in the same way  The choice is down to personal preference  provided you   re consistent with your file naming you won   t have a problem with either   Depending on the configuration of the web server  one of the file types will take precedence over the other  This should not be an issue since it   s unlikely that you   ll have both index htm and index html sitting in the same folder   We always use the shorter  htm for our file names since file extensions are typically 3 characters long   AND MORE ON  http   www sightspecific com  mosh WWW FAQ ext html or http   www sightspecific com  mosh WWW FAQ ext htm  I think I should add this part here   There is one single slight difference between  htm and  html files  Consider a path in your server like  mydomain com myfolder  If you create an index htm file inside that folder and you open that like this mydomain com myfolder   it will goes crazy and spit out your files as it is in your server   but if you create an index html file in there and open that directory in your browser  it will load that file  I tested this on my VPS and found this Maybe you could somehow set your server to load index htm files by default  but I guess the  html file is the default file type for browsers to open in each directory

User · Answer

Neither   If you re asking   what would a website visitor rather type  htm or html  - it s much better to give them a nice descriptive URL with no extension  If they get used to going to yoursite contact html and you change it to yoursite contact php you ve broken that link  If you use yoursite contact  then there s no problem when you switch technology

User · Answer

I have a site that is all  htm and was told by a computer  know it all  to change to  html because it would help google rank   saved time and

User · Answer

html always for new files    htm is a throwback to dos days

User · Answer

html - DOS has been dead for a long time  But it doesn t really make much difference in the end

User · Answer

In short  they are exactly the same   If you notice the end of the URL  sometimes you ll see  htm and other times you ll see  html   It still refers to the Hyper-Text Markup Language

User · Answer

Here is some food for thought    If you had been using all  htm files on your website and now  for example  you have changed the editor that you are using  and your new editor is outputting all your files with the  html extension  When you re-publish your site to the server  it would seem to me that you could really hurt your SEO position ranking as many of the links out there in the web  including Google  that were looking for the  htm and not the new  html for that same page  This assumes that you are still using the same page names from your old editor which would make sense    Anyway    My point is  be careful not to loose that link juice you have build up  So I guess in this example  there is a reason to stick with  htm    But other then that as mentioned by everyone else they seem to be the same    Please correct if I m wrong    The reason I mention all this is because this is what I was in the process of doing when it occurred to me I may be damaging the site SEO with the new editor    The original editor was MS Front Page  which always outputted  htm  dead now  and the new editor  90 Second Web Builder 9  which outputs all  html files    Luckily  they must have thought about this and they included a way to change the output extension back to  htm   Anyway  that s my 2 cents    hope it helps someone

User · Answer

I guess it s a little too late now however the only time it does make a difference is when you set up HTML signatures on MS Outlook  even 2010   It s just not able to handle  html extensions  only  htm

[html] Should you use .htm or .html file extension? What is the difference, and which file is correct?

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