Trailing Slash: Lost in Redirection?
-
Question here, but first the lead in. As you all know, 301 redirects don't pass on 100% of link juice. I've set up my site using htaccess to redirect all non-ww to www and redirect all URLs to have a trailing slash. FYI, the preferred domain is selected in WMT and canonical URLs appear in the head section of all pages.
So now what happens when sites that link to mine don't include either the www or the trailing slash, which is actually quite common? Of course, asking the site own to correct the link is ideal, but that's not always possible. So if thousands of links on external sites are linking to http://www.site.com instead of http://www.site.com/, won't lots of link juice get lost in redirection?
I can't think of anything more I can do to the URLs to reduce duplicate content and juice dilution. Thoughts?
Kevin
-
Thanks for the posts everybody. Confirming that I've done everything I have influence over, I guess that settles it. I just tried searching for more on this after reading Matt Cutts, Eric Ward, Joost de Valk, and others SEO pros share different info.
On to other SEO issues. Awesome to be back at SEOmoz guys!
-
Hi Kevin,
I responded to this question here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/trailing-slashes-in-url-use-canonical-url-or-301-redirect#post-53208
In short, you have taken all the proper action. You have done everything possible to ensure users properly link to your site by using a consistent URL format. You have also properly redirected those users who do not use the proper format, which is much better then many sites which simply generate a 404 error.
If you set up your site properly from day 1, the result should be over 90% of the links to your site are valid, and a small percentage require a single redirect. It's the best result you can hope for. You cannot achieve 100% efficiency as links from other sites are outside your control.
-
from www.site.com to wwwsite.com/ you wont lose anything, it ios not a 301, it happens by itself.
but /page to /page/ you will lose a bit.
I always suggest non slash as people are much more likly to leave a slash off then add one on when creating a link.
Make sure that whatt ever you decide that you keep to in your internal linking, you have no control over what others do.
-
I think this is evertything you can do. Do 301 or implement canonicals from the non slash versions of the urls to your preferred slash versions. There will be only a handful I think who will type in your urls manually rather them copying and pasting them when they want to link to it. You can do nothing with the rest: as you said: ask them to correct or bear that 10%loss of link juice.
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
-
Redirect domain or keep separate domains in each country?
Hi all Hoping this might be something that can be answered given the number of variables 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IsaCleanse
My main site is www.isacleanse.com.au (Obviously targeted to Australian Market) and also www.isacleanse.co.nz targeted to NZ. The main Keywords im targeting are 'Isagenix' for both and also Isagenix Australia, Isagenix Perth, Sydney (Australian cities) and Isagenix NZ, Isagenix New Zealand, Isagenix Auckland etc.. for NZ The Australian site gets a lot more traffic and Australian market gets a lot more searches - I also have a section www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-new-zealand/ on the Australian site. The question is am I best off redirrecting the .co.nz domain completley to the Australian Domain to give it extra SEO Juice?0 -
Clarity needed on 301 redirects
Looking to get a bit of clarity on redirects: We're getting ready to launch a new website with a simplified url structure (we're consolidating pages & content) & I already know that I'll have to employ 301 redirects from the old url structure to the new. What I'm not clear about is how specifc I should be. Here's an example of my file structure: Old website: www.website.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSimmons17
New website: www.website.com Old website: www.website.com/vacations
New website: www.website.com/vacations Old website: www.website.com/vacations/costa-rica
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/costa-rica/guanacaste
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/mexico
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/mexico/cancun
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/bolivia
New website: www.website.com/vacations/south-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/bolivia/la-paz
New website: www.website.com/vacations/south-america Do I need to redirect each and every page or would just redirecting just the folder be enough to keep my SEO juice? Many thanks in advance for any help!0 -
301 redirect via htaccess question
So, I have www.sitea.com and www.siteb.com I want to redirect SOME pages from www.sitea.com to www.siteb.com (example: www.sitea.com/plugins/wp/ to www.siteb/wp/ etc ) and the rest of any pages left, to the homepage of www.siteb.com. It is something with conditions... any help, please?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasmin280 -
International IP redirection - help please!
Hi, We have a new client who has built a brand in the UK on a xyz.com domain. The "xyz.com" is now a brand and features on all marketing. Lots of SEO work has taken place and the UK site has good rankings and traffic. They have now expanded to the US and with offline marketing leading the way, xyz.com is the brand being pushed in the US. So with the launch of the offline marketing US IP's are now redirected to a US version of the site (subfolder) with relevant pricing and messaging. This is great for users, but with Googlebot being on a US IP it is also being redirected and the UK pages have now dropped out of the index. The solution we need would ideally have both UK and US users searching for xyz.com, but would see them land on respective static pages with correct prices. Ideally no link authority would be moved via redirection of users. We have considered the following solutions Move UK site to subfolder /uk and redirect UK ips to this subfolder (and so not googlebot) downside of this is it will massively impact the UK rankings which are the core driver of the business - also would this be deemed as illegal cloaking? natural links will always be to the xyz.com page and so longer term the US homepage will gain authority and UK homepage will be more reliant on artificial linkbuilding. Use a overlay that detects IP address and requests users to select relevant country (and cookies to redirect on second visit) this has been rejected by ecommerce team as will increase bounce rate% & we dont want users to be able to see other countries due to prduct and price differences. Use a homepage with country selection (and cookies to redirect on second visit) this has been rejected by ecommerce team as will increase bounce rate% & we dont want users to be able to see other countries due to prduct and price differences. Is there an easy solution to this problem that we're overlooking? Is there another way of legal cloaking we could use here? Many thanks in advance for any help here
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Red_Mud_Rookie0 -
How To 301 Redirect .html pages
I need to redirect a page/URL that is purely .html to a new location. I don't know how to do this. All the redirects I can find are for server side code pages .php/.aspx etc. From my understanding I can't put a server side redirect in a .html file. I am hosting on a microsoft server, however the new page I am redirecting to is .php. I am running some WordPress (.php) files on the server. I need to make it redirect before the old page loads so visitors don't start reading something that is about to get redirected Can someone please help me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MyNet0 -
Setting up of 301 redirects
Good morning all, As part of the analysis of our website, we have realised that we are diluting our keyword strength in a particular area by having multiple zones all targeting the same keyword. We have decided to combine these zones into one, and set up 301 redirects so that the remaining zone gets the benefit of the other zones' link juice. When setting up a 301 redirect from zone "X" to zone "Y" say, do I need to keep all of the content in zone X, or should I remove all content before the redirect is set up? Does zone Y still get the benefit of zone X's link juice if the content is removed? Many thanks Guy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Horizon0 -
301 redirect from .html to non .html?
Previously our site was using this as our URL structure: www.site.com/page.html. A few months ago we updated our URL structure to this: www.site.com/page & we're not using the .html. I've read over this guide & don't see anywhere that discusses this: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection. I've currently got a programmer looking into, but am always a bit weary with their workarounds, as I'd previously had them cause more problems then fix it. Here is the solution he is looking to do: The way that I am doing the redirect is fine. The problem is of where to put the code. The issue is that the files are .html files that need to be redirected to the same url with out a .html on them. I can see if I can add that to the 404 redirect page if there is one inside of there and see if that does the trick. That way if there is no page that exists without the .html then it will still be a 404 page. However if it is there then it will work as normal. I will see what I can find and get back. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, BJ
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seointern0 -
301 Redirect shenanigans.
So our website (www.FrontlineMobility.com) Has a canonical link redirect to the non www. version. However when I put in website.com it comes up with a small list of links and says this site links to www.website.com. So I'm curious if I used to wrong canonical linking method( that is the method I tried and I placed it in the Head Tags.) I greatly appreciate any assistance in this matter ^.^
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrontlineMobility0