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.
Duplicate content on URL trailing slash
-
Hello,
Some time ago, we accidentally made changes to our site which modified the way urls in links are generated. At once, trailing slashes were added to many urls (only in links).
Links that used to send to
example.com/webpage.htmlWere now linking to
example.com/webpage.html/Urls in the xml sitemap remained unchanged (no trailing slash).
We started noticing duplicate content (because our site renders the same page with or without the trailing shash). We corrected the problematic php url function so that now, all links on the site link to a url without trailing slash.
However, Google had time to index these pages. Is implementing 301 redirects required in this case?
-
Yes you want to have it match the canonical tag so most effective method is to 301 redirect so they match the canonical tag site map and robots.txt etc. You can use a Regex code like this at the end of the URL /?$ in the case of category URLs it will allow them when needed.
if you use the proper 301 you will not have to deal with the category issue anyway.
rel="canonical" href="https://moz.com/community/q/duplicate-content-on-url-trailing-slash" />
I hope this is able to shed more light on the issue and great answer Eric.
Hope I was of help,
Tom
-
Hi Eric,
I was at Step 3 of your 3 Step plan, looking for confirmation as to whether or not the 301 redirects were required in this situation.
Thanks!
-
Hi yacpro13! Did Eric or Thomas answer your question, and if so, would you mind marking one or both responses as a "Good Answer?"
Otherwise, what questions do you still have?
-
If you have changed the URLs with trailing slashes, then there are a few things you'll want to do:
-
make sure all the internal links on your site are updated to point to the proper version.
-
make sure that the sitemap.xml file(s) are correct, pointing to the proper version.
-
set up 301 permanent redirects so that the ones with the slash are redirecting to the old URLs.
As long as you have corrected the links internally, updated the sitemap file, and set up the 301 redirects, everything should go "back to normal" within a fairly short period of time. You will need to give it time, though, as Google will need to re-crawl all of those URLs and get it all ironed out.
-
-
I have provided the Apache and Nginx configurations you would need in addition to a URL that will convert
Apache Htaccess to Nginx
The instructions are right here
Remove Trailing Slash
Just like with the WWW example, some prefer to remove the trailing slash. It's a commonly debated question that you'll find around the Internet, but it just depends on what you prefer.
Remember, though, your browser and even your server, by default, add a trailing slash to a directory. It is done for a reason. If you must strip the trailing slash, though, this is how you would do it:
<code class="hljs apache">RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]</code>
For Nginx
nginx configuration location ~ (.)$ { } location / { if (!-e $request_filename){ rewrite ^(.)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 redirect; } }
The explanation for this rule is the same as it is for when we want to add a trailing slash, just in reverse. We can also specify specific directories that we don't want apply this rule over.
<code class="hljs apache">RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !directory/(.*)$ RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]</code>
For Nginx
nginx configuration location ~ directory/(.)$ { } location ~ (.)$ { } location / { if (!-e $request_filename){ rewrite ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 redirect; } }
Please see the note about mod_dir and the
DirectorySlash
directive in the previous example. You might need to turn this directive off.HTaccess converter for Apache to Nginx configuration.
http://winginx.com/en/htaccess
https://www.maxcdn.com/one/tutorial/remove-trailing-slash/
https://www.crucialhosting.com/knowledgebase/htaccess-apache-rewrites-examples
https://moz.com/community/q/how-to-remove-trailing-slashes-in-urls-using-htaccess-apache
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
-
Same content, different languages. Duplicate content issue? | international SEO
Hi, If the "content" is the same, but is written in different languages, will Google see the articles as duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chalet
If google won't see it as duplicate content. What is the profit of implementing the alternate lang tag?Kind regards,Jeroen0 -
Contextual FAQ and FAQ Page, is this duplicate content?
Hi Mozzers, On my website, I have a FAQ Page (with the questions-responses of all the themes (prices, products,...)of my website) and I would like to add some thematical faq on the pages of my website. For example : adding the faq about pricing on my pricing page,... Is this duplicate content? Thank you for your help, regards. Jonathan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonathanLeplang0 -
How to deal with URLs and tabbed content
Hi All, We're currently redesigning a website for a new home developer and we're trying to figure out the best way to deal with tabbed content in the URL structure. The design of the site at the moment will have a page for a development and within that you can select your house type, then when on the house type page there will be tabs displayed for the user to see things like the plot map, availability and pricing, specifications, etc. The way our development team are looking at handling this is for the URL to use a hashtag or a query string at the end of it so we can still land users on these specific tabs for PPC for example. My question is really, has anyone had any experience with this? Any recommendations on how to best display the urls for SEO? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | J_Sinclair0 -
Magento Trailing Slash URL Problem
Howdy Mozzers! Our magento store URL's are accessible with or without a trailing slash at the end. Canonical's and 301 redirects are not set up for one of them at the moment. Will this cause duplicate issue? Do we need to set canonical or 301 up? Which one is recommended? MozAddict
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MozAddict0 -
Duplicate content on sites from different countries
Hi, we have a client who currently has a lot of duplicate content with their UK and US website. Both websites are geographically targeted (via google webmaster tools) to their specific location and have the appropriate local domain extension. Is having duplicate content a major issue, since they are in two different countries and geographic regions of the world? Any statement from Google about this? Regards, Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MBASydney0 -
Duplicate content on subdomains.
Hi Mozer's, I have a site www.xyz.com and also geo targeted sub domains www.uk.xyz.com, www.india.xyz.com and so on. All the sub domains have the content which is same as the content on the main domain that is www.xyz.com. So, I want to know how can i avoid content duplication. Many Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HiteshBharucha0 -
Copying my Facebook content to website considered duplicate content?
I write career advice on Facebook on a daily basis. On my homepage users can see the most recent 4-5 feeds (using FB social media plugin). I am thinking to create a page on my website where visitors can see all my previous FB feeds. Would this be considered duplicate content if I copy paste the info, but if I use a Facebook social media plugin then it is not considered duplicate content? I am working on increasing content on my website and feel incorporating FB feeds would make sense. thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
Duplicate Content on Wordpress b/c of Pagination
On my recent crawl, there were a great many duplicate content penalties. The site is http://dailyfantasybaseball.org. The issue is: There's only one post per page. Therefore, because of wordpress's (or genesis's) pagination, a page gets created for every post, thereby leaving basically every piece of content i write as a duplicate. I feel like the engines should be smart enough to figure out what's going on, but if not, I will get hammered. What should I do moving forward? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Byron_W0