Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to force a trailing slash after the domain name
-
My campaign analysis is predictably listing domain.com and domain.com/ as repeated content. I've searched and searched but cannot find a way to force a trailing slash on the end of the domain name unless there's a file or directory after it..
Is there a way to accomplish this using .htaccess
-
I've gone with this .htaccess from your soulgorithm.com:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.co.uk [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://domain.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.)/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule (.)/$ $1.php [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule .* %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/ [R=301,L]and I'm now getting the results I'm after. I'm getting similar behaviour to you in Firefox and IE, which explains a lot. I really appreciate the length you've gone to to help me here, so big thank you!
-
Test Site: soulgorithm.com
In the .htaccess file for this site:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.soulgorithm.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://soulgorithm.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.)/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule (.)/$ $1.html [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.)/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule (.)/$ $1.php [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule .* %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/ [R=301,L]Which has the following effect:
soulgorithm.com > soulgorithm.com/
(slash is added, but only shows in IE and looks
likes its being stripped by Firefox but page
still loads fine)
soulgorithm.com/ > soulgorithm.com/
(loads fine, but only shows in IE and lookslikes its being stripped by Firefox but page
still loads fine)
soulgorithm.com/test > soulgorithm.com/test/
(loads fine, slash even shows in FF)
soulgorithm.com/test/ > soulgorithm.com.com/test/
(loads fine)
soulgorithm.com/testdir > soulgorithm.com/testdir/
(loads fine, slash even shows in FF)
soulgorithm.com/testdir/ > soulgorithm.com.com/testdir/
(loads fine, slash even shows in FF)
Let me know if this is what you see. I feel likes its getting close to working.
-
Thanks for sticking with this. Rather than me share the domain, do you know of any example sites using your code (or similar) which add a trailing slash after the domain name? I'd like to rule out my browser stripping it out.
-
Man, my mind is blown right now. I'm not giving up and hopefully someone else can chime in on this discussion and shed some light on this issue.
The code provided should have worked. Let me look into it some more. Also, if you don't mind what is the actual domain name?
-
That's right - nothing in there but the code you supplied.
-
Is this the only thing you have in your htaccess file?
if not, I would remove everything in the file and only have what i posted above, and let me know if it works.
-
Nope. Still no trailing slashes being added.
-
Try just the following:
Let me know if this works for you.
RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !index.php RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301] -
Thanks for the reply, but this looks like all the other examples I've found. My .htaccess file looks like this :
DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L,QSA]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
RewriteRule ^(.)$ http://domain.co.uk/$1/ [L,R=301]But I get the following redirects going on:
domain.co.uk > domain.co.uk (ie nothing happens)
domain.co.uk/ > domain.co.uk (ie slash is removed)
domain.co.uk/page2 > domain.co.uk/page2 (ie nothing happens, but page loads)
domain.co.uk/page2/ > Internal server error
Any ideas?
-
Hi Clive.
Yes, you can easily do this with an .htaccess file, here is the code:
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301]Just replace "domain.com" with your proper url for your site. This should be all that is needed.
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Truncated product names
Due to the restraints of category page layout many of the products in certain categories have the product titles truncated, in some cases missing off 2-5 words depending on the product in question. The product name which displays on the category page is lifted straight from the product page itself, so not possible to do something like "product name including spec..." to place ... to indicate a bit more. I'm assuming not but just wanted to check that Google will not frown on this. Text is not being hidden it just does not render fully in the restricted space. So there is a scenario of 'bits of' text in the source not displaying on the rendered page.
Technical SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
Redirect multiple domains to 1 domain or not?
Hi there, I have client who has multiple domains that already have some PA and DA. Problem is that most websites have the same content and rank better on different keywords.
Technical SEO | | Leaf-a-mark
I want to redirect all the websites to 1 domain because it’s easier to manage and it removes any duplicate content. Question is if I redirect domain x to domain y do the rankings of domain x increase on domain y? Or is it better to keep domain x separately to generate more referral traffic to domain y? Thanks in advance! Cheers0 -
URL Structure On Site - Currently it's domain/product-name NOT domain/category/product name is this bad?
I have a eCommerce site and the site structure is domain/product-name rather than domain/product-category/product-name Do you think this will have a negative impact SEO Wise? I have seen that some of my individual product pages do get better rankings than my categories.
Technical SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
Help: domain name change and Google News
Hi. I work for a regional news source, and our (separate) Spanish-language news publication recently changed its domain name. The publication lost its Google News inclusion. Most of their traffic came from Google News, so traffic tanked. They're trying to get back in. They reapplied but didn't get approved. They're now in the 30-day waiting period to reapply again. The website is run by a third-party company, which handled the domain name change in April (2015). That company has been running their site for a couple of years. Our in-house devs' hands are tied on helping, because we (at the mother company) don't manage their site. This third party has not been responsive. The Spanish pub folks have reached out to me to help them prepare for Round 2 of reapplication. I'm the mothership in-house SEO, but I've never experienced this situation before. Because everything seems to be in order besides the ham-handed changes, my best advice to them so far is: You'll have to wait until Google gets to know you again, unfortunately. Does that sound right? Any pointers out there for bringing their best possible A-game to the next round?
Technical SEO | | christyrobinson1 -
Redirect root domain to www
I've been having issues with my keyword rankings with MOZ and this is what David at M0Z asked me to do below. Does anyone have a solution to this? I'm not 100% sure what to do. Does it hurt ranking to have a domain at the root or not? Can I 301 redirect a whole site or do I have to do individual pages. "Your campaign is looking for rankings for the www version of the campaign but the URL resolves as a root domain. This would explain the discrepancy. Since there is no re-direct between the two, you can have brickmarkers.com 301 re-direct to www.site.com which will prevent you from re-creating your campaign to track the root domain. Once the re-direct is in place it will take a while for Google to show the www version in the results in which your campaign rankings will be accurate." Thanks
Technical SEO | | SeaDrive0 -
Using the word "FREE" in domain name
Hi, This may seem like a simple question but a new client of mine wishes to use a domain name with the word "free" in it. The website will offer free activity vouchers. I couldn't see this being a problem as there a lot of websites that do this although he was told it may present a problem with the search engines thinking the site was spammy. It won't be and will be offering information and vouchers on local sporting activities. I was wondering if anybody could clarify this please so I can give him a more definitive answer to his question. Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | malinkymedia0 -
Trailing Slashes on Home Pages
I do not think I have a problem here, but a second opinion would be welcomed... I have a site which has a the rel=canonical tag with the trailing slash displayed. ie www.example.com/ The sitemap has it without the trailing slash. www.example.com Google has it's cached copy with the trailing slash but the browser displays it without. I want to say it's perfectly fine (for the home page) as I tend to think they are treated (with/without trailing slashes) as the same canonical URL.
Technical SEO | | eventurerob0 -
Any way around buying hosting for an old domain to 301 redirect to a new domain?
Howdy. I have just read this QA thread, so I think I have my answer. But I'm going to ask anyway! Basically DomainA.com is being retired, and DomainB.com is going to be launched. We're going to have to redirect numerous URLs from DomainA.com to DomainB.com. I think the way to go about this is to continue paying for hosting for DomainA.com, serving a .htaccess from that hosting account, and then hosting DomainB.com separately. Anybody know of a way to avoid paying for hosting a .htaccess file on DomainA.com? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | SamTurri0