Where is the "/" on the end of my url coming from? Are all my backlinks wrong?

[DVDStar]

Hi all. I've been working on some topics this week for my blog, SEO for BIZ (http://seoforbiz.blogspot.com/), which I’m trying to develop as a newbie SEO information resource.

I've been writing a guide on organising your site structure (directories etc) so that your urls are search engine and keyword friendly, and that your site is also easy to maintain when it grows.
I based the guide on a freelance project of mine, CD Duplication, DVD Duplication, Replication, London UK (http://www.amstore.co.uk), and how I designed the directory structure.

I have been linking to this site from online directories etc using the url above, but have now noticed that both my browser and the Google page cache insert a "/" on the end of the url.

Please tell me that the url without the slash and the one with the slash are treated as the SAME url? i.e. will links for one count as links for the other??

Dave

[NateDesmond]

Do not worry!:D

Whether a link has the slash or not it will still go to the same website!

[Peter (IMC)]

Ever seen a site where this doesn't happen?

[wige]

The slash is part of the HTTP protocol. The request portion of the URL must always start with a slash. If you do not put a slash in a link because you are linking to a domain name, browsers and spiders will automatically add the slash. As far as Google, Yahoo, MSN, IE, Opera, Firefox, etc. are concerned, domain.tld is exactly identical to domain.tld/.

[Dubbya]

As far as Google, Yahoo, MSN, IE, Opera, Firefox, etc. are concerned, domain.tld is exactly identical to domain.tld/.

That's not necessarily true as it relates to SE's and canonicalization.

According to Matt Cutts, what's important is consistency.



Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

* www.example.com
* example.com/
* www.example.com/index.html
* example.com/home.asp

But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set.

Q: So how do I make sure that Google picks the url that I want?
A: One thing that helps is to pick the url that you want and use that url consistently across your entire site. For example, don’t make half of your links go to http://example.com/ and the other half go to http://www.example.com/ . Instead, pick the url you prefer and always use that format for your internal links.

Q: Is there anything else I can do?
A: Yes. Suppose you want your default url to be http://www.example.com/ . You can make your webserver so that if someone requests http://example.com/, it does a 301 (permanent) redirect to http://www.example.com/ . That helps Google know which url you prefer to be canonical. Adding a 301 redirect can be an especially good idea if your site changes often (e.g. dynamic content, a blog, etc.).


Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/

.02

[Jean-Luc]

That's not necessarily true as it relates to SE's and canonicalization.There is no canonicalization issue here as both URL's have exactly the same meaning:
http://www.my_site.com will always be identical to http://www.my_site.com/

The same does not apply to http://www.my_site.com/ and http://my_site.com/: the contents of these URL's can be different. Admittedly they are often the same, but there are exceptions. This is what Matt Cutts was talking about.

Jean-Luc

[wige]

In that article, (frequently quoted for discussions on this topic) Matt Cutts is referring to the leading subdomain, rather than the trailing slash. In the comments, Matt does address the trailing slash in one reply by suggesting that, like everything else, you pick the format you prefer. However, I have heard from many engineers working for various search engines that the trailing slash is always required in a URL, so if the slash is omitted, the spider automatically adds it.

[Jean-Luc]

These "engineers working for various search engines" meant that there is no possible canonicalization issue with the trailing slash for the URL of the home page.

This is not true for any other URL. In the following example, there is a potential canonicalization issue:
http://www.my_site.com/flowers is not necessarily the same as http://www.my_site.com/flowers/

Jean-Luc

[activeco]

The slash denotes directory and it is automatically added by most servers.