Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. How to force a trailing slash after the domain name

    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

    Technical SEO
    2
    11
    5815
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JollyBoy
      JollyBoy last edited by

      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

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • JollyBoy
        JollyBoy @JollyBoy last edited by

        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!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • BailHotline
          BailHotline @JollyBoy last edited by

          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 looks

          likes 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.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • JollyBoy
            JollyBoy @JollyBoy last edited by

            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.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • BailHotline
              BailHotline @JollyBoy last edited by

              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?

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JollyBoy
                JollyBoy @JollyBoy last edited by

                That's right - nothing in there but the code you supplied.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • BailHotline
                  BailHotline @JollyBoy last edited by

                  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.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • JollyBoy
                    JollyBoy @JollyBoy last edited by

                    Nope. Still no trailing slashes being added.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • BailHotline
                      BailHotline @JollyBoy last edited by

                      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]
                      
                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JollyBoy
                        JollyBoy @BailHotline last edited by

                        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?

                        BailHotline JollyBoy 8 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • BailHotline
                          BailHotline last edited by

                          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!

                          JollyBoy 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • GhillC

                            Trailing slash URLs and canonical links

                            Hi, I've seen a fair amount of topics speaking about the difference between domain names ending with or without trailing slashes, the impact on crawlers and how it behaves with canonical links.
                            However, it sticks to domain names only.
                            What about subfolders and pages then? How does it behaves with those? Say I've a site structured like this:
                            https://www.domain.com
                            https://www.domain.com/page1 And for each of my pages, I've an automatic canonical link ending with a slash.
                            Eg. rel="canonical" href="https://www.domain.com/page1/" /> for the above page. SEM Rush flags this as a canonical error. But is it exactly?
                            Are all my canonical links wrong because of that slash? And as subsidiary question, both domain.com/page1 and domain.com/page1/ are accessible. Is it this a mistake or it doesn't make any difference (I've read that those are considered different pages)? Thanks!
                            G

                            Technical SEO | | GhillC
                            0
                          • mollykathariner_ms

                            Forwarding a .org domain to a .com domain: any negative impact to consider?

                            Hello! I have a question I've been unable to find a clear answer to. My client's primary domain is a .com with a satisfactorily high DA. My client owns the .org version of its domain (which has a very low DA, I suppose due to inactivity) but has never forwarded it on. For branding/visibility/traffic reasons, I'd like to recommend they set up the .org domain to forward to the .com domain, but I wanted to ask a few questions first: 1. Does forwarding low-value DA domains to high-value DA domains have any negative authority/SEO impact? 2. If the .org domain was to be forwarded, am I correct that an SSL cert is not necessary for it if the .com domain has an SSL cert? Thanks in advance!

                            Technical SEO | | mollykathariner_ms
                            1
                          • arun.negi

                            We switched the domain from www.blog.domain.com to domain.com/blog.

                            We switched the domain from www.blog.domain.com to domain.com/blog. This was done with the purpose of gaining backlinks to our main website as well along with to our blog. This set us very low in organic traffic and not to mention, lost the backlinks. For anything, they are being redirected to 301 code. Kindly suggest changes to bring back all the traffic.

                            Technical SEO | | arun.negi
                            0
                          • Pack

                            Redirect non slash to slash

                            Hello SEO gurus We have an issue here ( www.xyz.com.au) is having 200 responses www.xyz.com.au and www.xyz.com.au/ ( when i ran the crawl test i found this ) We have been advised to do a 301 from non slash to slash ( as our other pages are showing up with slash ) for the consistency we decided to go with this but our devs just couldnt do it. Error is - redirect loop and this site is a wordpress one Can anyone help us with this issue? Help is much appreciated.

                            Technical SEO | | Pack
                            0
                          • christyrobinson

                            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 | | christyrobinson
                            1
                          • SeaDrive

                            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 | | SeaDrive
                            0
                          • eventurerob

                            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 | | eventurerob
                            0
                          • Weerdboil

                            Delete old site but redirect domain to a new domain and site

                            I just have a quick query and I have a feeling about what the answer is so just wanted to see what you guys thought... Basically I am working on a client site. This client has a few other websites that are divisions of their company. However these divisions/websites are no longer used. They are wanting to delete the websites but redirect the domains to their name main website. They believe this will pass on SEO benefits as these old division sites are old and have a good PR and history. I'm unsure for DEFINITE, which way is correct?

                            Technical SEO | | Weerdboil
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          • Digital Marketers
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.