site home not at site root index

Question

I have an SEO concern with a website that has just finished the development stage, basically the site has been in progress for a year. During this period the site has been accessible from the URL: /home/index.php along with a landing page (construction) at: /

It is time to launch and I need to know what to do. Should I go through the site and change all links to the homepage to the site root index (where the construction page currently is), or can I do some form of redirecting that will not negatively effect SEO.

Can I 301 redirect /index.php to go to /home/ OR should I move the homepage content to /index.php and do a redirect on /home/index.php to point to the site root index.php

What is the best solution that is SEO friendly?

Answer 1

The best solution in terms of SEO would be to ensure that your homepage loads at / (root) and all other possible variations redirect to / accordingly.

This of course depends on exactly what you have loading at / currently however and what platform / CMS your site sits on.

Typically, you would look to 301 redirect /index.php and /home and /home/index.php to / and ensure that your homepage content resides at /. All of which can be implemented via your root .htaccess on an Apache server. Then serve / (www.domain.com) as the canonical URL for your homepage.

If you require more depth to this answer, please advise what content is currently served in your site's root and what CMS / platform your site is using.