Is it better to have trailing slash or no trailing slash in URLs and what if both variations work?
-
Hi I have a situation on a website where the links are structured like this http://website.com/myurl/ so anywhere you click you will land on a page with a trailing slash but if i remove the trailing slash like this http://website.com/myurl the page is still going to open the same content.
1. so it works with and without the trailing slash. is this considered as duplicate content by google? and if so what is the best way to go? should i redirect al the non trailing slash urls to trailing slash or the opposite?
2. if i redirect am i going to loose some link juice from existing external links which mainly already point to urls without th trailing slash.
3. i've noticed that the sitemap.xml contains links without the trailing slash .. should it contain the urls with the trailing slash?
Also there's many external links pointing to this site but withouth the trailng slash like this http://website.com/myurl
-
The problem you're describing is almost exactly the reason why canonical URL functionality exists. Just pick your canonical (with or without slash - it doesn't matter) and make sure you roll it out consistently across your website and sitemap.
Regards,
George
-
I would personally suggest you not to go for 301 as it will increase the page load time of the website which direct affects the rankings in search engines. I would rather prefer to choose the preferred version and use canonicals on every page of the website. This way Google will have an idea about what URL is the preferred and crawl the stuff accordingly.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi,
I would suggest that you verify whether 301 redirects are even a possibility. For example, if the website is hosted on IIS server, then the 301 redirect rule might result into a redirect loop. In such a scenario, I would suggest you place self canonical tag on the page. For example on the page domainA.com/page 1, we will have the following tag in the head section of the page -
For the PDF files, place the canonical tag in the header response.
On the links front - You will not be losing a lot
Regards,
Sajeet
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Changing Url Removes Backlink
Hello MOZ Community, I have question regarding Bad Backlink Removal. My Site's Post's Image got 4 to 5k backlinks from unknown sites and also their is no contact details on their site so that i can contact them to remove. So, I have an idea for which i want suggestion " If I change the url that receieves backlinks" does this will remove backlinks? For Example: https://example.com/test/ got 5k backlinks if I change this url to https://examplee.com/test-failed/ does this will remove those 5k backlinks? If not then How Can I remove those Backlinks? I Know about disavow but this takes time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jackson210 -
Changing existing URL to boost SEO
What's best practice regarding changing URLs for SEO? If the page contains great information around a particular term but the URL is not reflective of this and thus the page isn't ranking should the URL be changed? Or is it always a hard and fast no? It would seem to make sense to me if the page didn't have any backlinks already and Organic clicks were minimal. Sam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Samsam00000 -
URL structure with dash or slash
Hi, everyone Basically I am editing my website page's URL for SEO Optimisation and I am not sure which URL structure is best for SEO. The main different is the sign ( dash or slash ) before the product-code. HERE ARE TWO EXAMPLE www.example.com/long-tail-keyword-product-code www.example.com/long-tail-keyword/product-code To get more idea of my page, here is one of the product from my website : http://www.okeus.co.uk/pro_view-3.html My website is selling my own product, as a result the only keyword can be found was the name of the product and I separated different design by different code. Any experts who are willing help would be very much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chrisyu781 -
Linking to URLs With Hash (#) in Them
How does link juice flow when linking to URLs with the hash tag in them? If I link to this page, which generates a pop-over on my homepage that gives info about my special offer, where will the link juice go to? homepage.com/#specialoffer Will the link juice go to the homepage? Will it go nowhere? Will it go to the hash URL above? I'd like to publish an annual/evergreen sort of offer that will generate lots of links. And instead of driving those links to homepage.com/offer, I was hoping to get that link juice to flow to the homepage, or maybe even a product page, instead. And just updating the pop over information each year as the offer changes. I've seen competitors do it this way but wanted to see what the community here things in terms of linking to URLs with the hash tag in them. Can also be a use case for using hash tags in URLs for tracking purposes maybe?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiguelSalcido0 -
Sub-Domain or Folder. Which is better for SEO.?
Hey all. I just need clarification that which one is better to use for big property or travel portal. Check below example: I have a website which runs for multiple location like india, uk, canada, uae. For every location the content is different. So my question is that for better SEO results should i use india.xyz.com or **xyz.com/india/ **. One more example **canada.xyz.com **or xyz.com/canada/ Can anyone please suggest which one is better. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PFX1110 -
Company Blog at a different URL
Ok, I have been doing a lot of work over the past 6 months, disavowing low quality links from spammy directories to our company website, etc. However, my efforts seem to have had a negative, not positive effect. This has brought me back to reconsidering what we are doing as we have lost a good amount of traction on the nationwide Google rankings specifically. Considering our company blog - platinumcctv(dot)net - we have used this blog for a long time to inform customers of new products, software developments and then to provide them links to purchase those components. Last week, I revamped the nearly default wordpress theme to another on a piece of advice. However, someone told me that all of our links should be nofollow, even though it is a company blog because we have many links coming from this domain, and it could be found as spammy. Potato/Potato - But before I start the tedious task of changing every link to no follow on a whim, i searched a lot, but have found no CLEAR substantiation of this. Any ideas? Other recommendations appreciated as well! Platinum-CCTV(dot)com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PTCCTV0 -
Exact keyword URL or not?
Hi all, I have a quick question about the proper use of permalinks. Let's say that I have a website about sports and I want to create an internal page dedicated to shoes. I know that the keyword "shoe" has 15.000 monthly visits, while the keyword "shoes" has 1.000 monthly visits. How do I have to name the internal page? http://www.example.com/shoe or http://www.example.com/shoes (with a final 's')? I would think that by naming the URL http://www.example.com/shoes, the search engine would consider that page for the keywords "shoe" and "shoes", but I am not sure about it. Should I create a URL that only focuses on one specific keyword ("shoe", in this example) or a URL that may encompass more than one keyword ("shoe" and "shoes")? I hope this is clear. Thank you for your time and help. All best, Sal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
Changing URLS - wondering about implications
We are in the process of changing our URLs from dynamic to more SEO friendly. The website is ciee.org and I'm specifically talking about ciee.org/study. While we work with the business to get approval for ciee.org/study-abroad, we are going with ciee.org/study/abroad. Can anyone foresee any difficulties or negative implications that could come if we change from study/abroad to study-abroad all within 6 months? Thank you in advance!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CIEEwebTeam0