Canonicalization

[gbb011]

I've set the preffered domain in Google, nevertheless I have a couple of questions relating to the canonicalization issue and hosting on a windows shared server.

1) When I submit to directories etc I use www. mysite. com, is there any difference between submitting "www.mysite.com" and "www.mysite.com/"

2) I use relative paths in my website, and for the home page link in my code it points to "/index.asp". Should I remove the page name and just use "/"

3) If my homepage was to go to "/", so it would show up as "www.mysite.com/" in the address bar, is this treated the same as "www.mysite.com"

Thanks.

[WDC]

Simple solution to this is redirect all pages to just one you are getting back links for.

[indiaparenting]

1) When I submit to directories etc I use www. mysite. com, is there any difference between submitting "www.mysite.com" and "www.mysite.com/"
There is no difference.

2) I use relative paths in my website, and for the home page link in my code it points to "/index.asp". Should I remove the page name and just use "/"
Yes

3) If my homepage was to go to "/", so it would show up as "www.mysite.com/" in the address bar, is this treated the same as "www.mysite.com"
Yes, both of the domains are same and pointing to one page only.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by indiaparenting

1) When I submit to directories etc I use www. mysite. com, is there any difference between submitting "www.mysite.com" and "www.mysite.com/"
There is no difference.

2) I use relative paths in my website, and for the home page link in my code it points to "/index.asp". Should I remove the page name and just use "/"
Yes

3) If my homepage was to go to "/", so it would show up as "www.mysite.com/" in the address bar, is this treated the same as "www.mysite.com"
Yes, both of the domains are same and pointing to one page only.

1. Yes there is a difference between the two URLs.

2. Yes that is a issue to. Make sure you always link to your home page consistantly the same. i always link to my home page as www. home page .com/

3. As said above it is possible that the SE will see those are two different URLs.

[mjtaylor]

I also always link to the home page with an absolute link to the domain name *without* the file name: http://www.domain.com.

I am not sure about the difference between using a trailing slash or not ... I would appreciate more clarification on that.

However, consistency is the key. I do know that. Choose one URL and use only that, on site and off.

Cheers, MJ

[wige]

As far as question #2, I agree with the comments above. In most cases, people who link to your home page are going to link to www. yoursite .com, without the file name, so following that standard, you will probably get the best results from using that as your internal and directory submission link format as well. To prevent issues, you may want to set up a mod_rewrite to 301 redirect all requests for /index.asp to /. Also, the same thing applies to your subdirectories. Find the scheme that works best, and set up an appropriate redirect and change your links accordingly.

As for the issue with the slash, I have to disagree. There is no difference between having the slash and not having it. All requests to a web server must start with, at a minimum, a slash. All search engines will add the slash to the end of the domain name if one is not present (although Yahoo hides that trailing slash on its SERPs, it is present if you analyze the redirect script). Most directories will do the same. You should get no difference if the slash is included or omitted.

[incrediblehelp]

Wige you are right, not sure what the heck I was thinking. I was just typing to early and to fast this morning. more from MC on the issue:

SEO advice: url canonicalization

[mwall]

That clears any confusion up nicely

[Webnauts]

There is a difference between:

• http://www.yoursite.com
• http://www.yoursite.com/
• http://www.yoursite.com/index.html
• http://www.yoursite.com/index.asp

More about: SEO advice: url canonicalization

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I am not sure about the difference between using a trailing slash or not ... I would appreciate more clarification on that.

Onsite <a href="/">Home</a> would be most appropriate.

[wige]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

There is a difference between:

• http://www.yoursite.com
• http://www.yoursite.com/

Actually, to a web browser and a search engine, these two are identical. The document you are referring to is comparing http://yoursite.com to http://www.yoursite.com/ and making reference to the omission of the www subdomain. As all further references to the first URL in the text include the trailing slash, this was a typo.

Originally Posted by http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/

Q: So when you say www vs. non-www, you’re talking about a type of canonicalization. Are there other ways that urls get canonicalized?
A: Yes, there can be a lot, but most people never notice (or need to notice) them. Search engines can do things like keeping or removing trailing slashes, trying to convert urls with upper case to lower case, or removing session IDs from bulletin board or other software (many bulletin board software packages will work fine if you omit the session ID).

(my bolding)