Trailing slash and rel="canonical"
-
Our website is in a directory format:
http://www.website.com/website.asp
Our homepage display URL is http://www.website.com which currently matches our to eliminate the possibility of duplicate content.
However, I noticed that in the SERPs, google displays the homepage with a trailing slash http://www.website.com/
My question: should I change the rel="canonical" to have a trailing slash? I noticed one of our competitors uses the trailing slash in their rel="canonical"
Do potential benefits outweigh the risks?
I can PM further information if necessary.
Thanks for the assistance in advance...
-
Thanks for the help George and participating in the discussion. I like the ease of the syntax involved with the non-www version, but I think people's and browsers natural inclination towards the www version makes it the most practical at this juncture. Perhaps if you're building a new site the less traditional non-www might be used, but like yourself, I also prefer the www.
Thanks,
Marty
-
It's really up to you and your marketing team I suppose. Maybe ask which sounds better (e.g. "for the best jambalaya in town go to www.jambalaya.com!" vs. "for the best jambalaya in town go to jambalaya.com!").
I prefer www.example.com myself.
-
Yes, I realized my typo after I posted, thanks. We do use the www version consistently, so no problem there. That being said, what's your take on the www vs non-www preferred domain structure, I've noticed some popular site (mashable comes to mind) going away from the www preferred domain -- just like to hear differing opinions if/when you have the time.
Thanks,
Marty
-
Yes, I realized my typo after I posted, thanks. We do use the www version consistently, so no problem there. That being said, what's your take on the www vs non-www preferred domain structure, I've noticed some popular site (mashable comes to mind) going away from the www preferred domain -- just like to hear differing opinions if/when you have the time.
Thanks,
Marty
-
I don't think you will lose any link juice.
I also don't think it matters which URL you use for domain root. That said, it would matter if you were using http://www.domain.com versus http://domain.com. Otherwise, I don't think you need to worry.
-
Hello George, thank you for your helpful response. While I knew it was the case for absolute URLs and subdirectories, I was unsure whether it also pertained to the root domain. The link provided a helpful explanation, although SEO's have been, "reasonably sure that just about all search engines will be normalizing all those URLs to be the same," in the past only to have those certainties change unexpectedly. That being said, I think the forum made a good point in saying,"search engines generally don't want to deliberately add duplicates to their index."
With our canonical URL set to www.domain.com , do you believe there will be any loss of link juice with backlinks using both the domain.com and domain.com/ , or will it just be a better indicator to the search engines that both URLs are one in the same? Also do you think it matters that the domain root with the trailing slash is the one that shows up in the Google SERPs? --- to me that seems to indicate that Google prefers the root domain in directories to have a trailing slash
-
Hi Marty, there is really no difference between root domain URLs with or without trailing slashes.
Note, however, that this is not true for absolute URLs: http://www.example.com/page is not the same as http://www.example.com/page/. For absolute URLs that are not the root domain, you need to be pretty explicit about whether or not it has a trailing slash. Many content management systems (e.g. WordPress) will let you choose to have trailing slashes or not.
At this point, I don't think you need to do anything with your homepage canonical URL since it is the same as adding a trailing slash.
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
-
My "search visibility" went from 3% to 0% and I don't know why.
My search visibility on here went from 3.5% to 3.7% to 0% to 0.03% and now 0.05% in a matter of 1 month and I do not know why. I make changes every week to see if I can get higher on google results. I do well with one website which is for a medical office that has been open for years. This new one where the office has only been open a few months I am having trouble. We aren't getting calls like I am hoping we would. In fact the only one we did receive I believe is because we were closest to him in proximity on google maps. I am also having some trouble with the "Links" aspect of SEO. Everywhere I see to get linked it seems you have to pay. We are a medical office we aren't selling products so not many Blogs would want to talk about us. Any help that could assist me with getting a higher rank on google would be greatly appreciated. Also any help with getting the search visibility up would be great as well.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | benjaminleemd1 -
Only ranking well when "UK" is added to search term
Hi, what does it mean when a lot of our keyword phrases rank only when "UK" is typed in the search term? For example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Solid_Web
"boxes" (not in top 50)
"boxes UK" (38) "big storage boxes" (45)
"big storage boxes UK" (33) We haven't attempted to SEO the pages for search terms with "UK" appended to them. Our domain is a co.uk domain. So, what reasons could there be that are we ranking in such a way?0 -
When i search for my domain name - google asks "did you mean" - why?
Hi all, I just noticed something quite odd - if i do a search for my domain name (see: http://goo.gl/LBc1lz) google shows my domain as first result, but it also asks "did i mean" and names another website with very similar name. the other site has far lower PA/DA according to Moz, any ideas why google is doing this? and more inportantly how i could stop it? please advise James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | isntworkdull0 -
Redirect old "not found" url (at http) to new corresponding page (now at https)
My least favorite part of SEO 😉 I'm trying to redirect an old url that no longer exists to our new website that is built with https. The old url: http://www.thinworks.com/palm-beach-gardens-team/ New url: https://www.thinworks.com/palm-beach-gardens/ This isn't working with my standard process of the quick redirection plugin in WP or through htaccess because the old site url is at http and not https. Any help would be much appreciated! How do I accomplish this, where do I do it and what's the code I'd use? Thank you Moz community! Ricky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SUCCESSagency0 -
Link Building for "State" informational pages
I have a webpage for all 50 states for specific info relating to relocation and was wondering if there are any recommended links to work at getting for these pages. I would like to do "state" specific and possibly health related links for each page to help in the SEO rankings. I can see that if I just wanted to get 10 links on each page that is going to be 500 links I have to build and it is going to be very time consuming but I feel it is necessary. Thank you, Poo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Do "NoFollow" links provide any SEO value?
Do "nofollow" links provide any SEO value, particularly for Google? I have heard that they still can, since Google doesn't necessarily follow all of the tags. Is this true? Is there any value in obtaining nofollow links? Can they also hurt in any way? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | applesofgold
Afshin Apples of Gold0 -
Can I reduce number of on page links by just adding "no follow" tags to duplicate links
Our site works on templates and we essentially have a link pointing to the same place 3 times on most pages. The links are images not text. We are over 100 links on our on page attributes, and ranking fairly well for key SERPS our core pages are optimized for. I am thinking I should engage in some on-page link juice sculpting and add some "no follow" tags to 2 of the 3 repeated links. Although that being said the Moz's on page optimizer is not saying I have link cannibalization. Any thoughts guys? Hope this scenario makes sense.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robertrRSwalters0 -
Is having a canonical tag for the link that IS the canonical a negative thing?
Throughout our site, canonical tags have been added where needed. However, the canonical tags are also included for the canonical itself. For example, for www.askaquestion.com, the canonical tag has been added as www.askaquestion.com. Will this have a negative impact or does it not really matter whether there is such a loop?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kbbseo0