This may be an odd question, but it's something that's come up more than once.

Does anyone know if it makes a difference if a link has a trailing slash or not? For instance, which of the two links below should I use for links to my site:
1. http://www.domain.com
2. http://www.domain.com/

The reason I ask is twofold. First, if you use the Google Toolbar and click backwards links on my domain, it appears as the following: "link:http://www.domain.com/". Perhaps Google values a URL more highly with a trailing slash?

The second reason is that if I (again using Google toolbar) check to see the cache on a certain page, there is a difference between the same URL, with and without a trailing slash. For instance
- http://www.domain.com/Category1/ (No cache)
- http://www.domain.com/Category1 (Cache)

There is zero difference between these two URLs and their content other than the trailing slash. I find it odd that Google differentiates between the two at all?

Any thoughts/ideas?

Craig, Welcome to the forums. The trailing slash is rather like a period to end a sentence. The sentence may still be read without the punctuation but... why not. I don't know that it makes any difference.

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My suggestion to you is BE CAREFUL very careful. I screwed my self up with one of my sites when i was doing the IIS Rewrite. If you are not doint an iis rewrite then you don't have to worry about this.

But here is what happens, if you set your iis rewrite to follow pages with the url ending in a "/" and do not handle the same url when its not ending with the "/" then you will have problems with Yahoo!. When Yahoo displays your results in their search engine they automatically take the "/" from the end of the url and when the visitor click on it they go to that url without the "/" at the end.

To make the long story short, I would rather go without it.

Anyone else?

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A URL without the trailing slash means the visitor--personal browser or searchbot--has to make an extra HTTP transaction.

If you call for--

http://www.mywonderfulsite.com/

--the host will search the target site's root directory for an index page, and serve that page.

If you call instead for--

http://www.mywonderfulsite.com

--the server will send back a redirect instructing the browser to ask for, yes, you guessed it, the form with the slash, which it will do and then be served the correct page.

Understand what that slash means: it signifies the root directory of the domain named in the preceding part of the call. A call to a bare domain is meaningless, because it does not tell the server which file from which directory of that domain is being sought. The server needs some directory information. Compare calls to:

http://www.mywonderfulsite.com/somename/someothername

--and--

http://www.mywonderfulsite.com/somename/someothername/

In the second case, you are clearly asking for a directory, and the server will give you back one of three things: an index page, if one exists in that directory; the contents of the directory if there is no index page; or (again if there is no index page, but depending on the server's settings) a notice that you are not allowed to see the contents of that directory.

In the first case, the server will think you are asking for a file named someothername located in the directory somename. When you make a call to the domain name followed by a slash, you have told the server two things: the domain, and that you want to see the root directory, preferably the index file in that directory, if there is one (else you'd specify the actual file in the root, which you can optionally do even for the index file: http://www.mywonderfuldomain.com/index.html)

I don't believe that search engines have any "preference": the backlink you see is the backlink the backlinker put in the link on her page. Some put in the trailing slash, some don't; they should all deliver equal "link credit" because the un-slashed form should always be redirected to the slashed form by your server.

I am unclear what one would to a server's software to disable its natural operation of redirecting the unslashed form to the slashed form, but whatever it is should be avoided like the plague, because it is a major mistake being made at a very fundamental level.

(That Yahoo strips the trailing slash in its listing is both mildly interesting and mildly amusing, but irrelevant because Yahoo's general auto-proctology has it looking out its own ears anyway.)

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Eric Walker, webmaster
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Thanks for your thoughts guys. Just as an aside, I use a mod_rewrite for my URLs so those aren't really even actual directories. Not sure if that would make a difference in how this is handled?

My biggest concern is that Google seems to believe that the slashed version is a separate page than the non-slashed version. I don't want them to spider and cache both, then think that I am trying to spam the engine with two pages of the exact same content.

With that said, I guess I'm leaning towards keeping the non-slashed URLs because that is what Google already has spidered and cached for my site. I'd prefer to have the slashed version, because I think it is cleaner, but I don't believe I'd gain enough to overcome the risk of being labeled a spammer by Google.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the non-slashed URLs . . . is what Google already has spidered and cached for my site."

If I enter into the Google search box--

http://www.1aauto.com

--the listing I get back (1A Auto Aftermarket Auto Parts) has, as its Google-given link--

http://www.1aauto.com/

If instead I enter the form with the trailing slash, I get . . .exactly the same thing.

As to--

http://www.1aauto.com/1A/DoorHandleExterior/

As written, that is the URL of a directory, not a file. The only way something with that URL would be cached is if there is, in that directory, a page that your server understands as an index page and serves automatically (the way, for example, front pages are typically served from a root directory). What constitutes a valid "index page" depends on the server's settings (and possibly user customization in an .htaccess file), but the roll call typically starts with "index.html", "index.shtml", and so on through The Usual Suspects.

The form that is cached for you,

http://www.1aauto.com/1A/DoorHandleExterior

looks to Google (or any browser) like the name of a file. Whether you have an actual file in your /1A/ directory named DoorHandleExterior (which seems unlikely) or whether that name is somehow redirected to some particular file, or whatever, is actually immaterial to Google: the URL is that of a file, and a file (page) is what Google gets, and so can cache. That URL with the slash points to a directory, from which, apparently, no default file (page) is automatically returned by the server.

It's hard to say more absent detailed knowledge of your directory/file configuration and server settings.

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Eric Walker, webmaster
SEO Tools, Toys, and Packages : free tools to directly SEO-augment your sites;
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I believe I have read that google treats urls with trailing /'s as different sites than the url without the trailing slash, as such it is best to use one or the other for all your linking purposes, which one doesn't really matter. am I correct on this?

In case you posted before the full thread was available to you:

You can answer your own question by entering into a Google search bar the URL of a site with the trailing slash, then checking the actual link in the response Google gives, then doing the same for the form without the slash.

I believe you will find that in either case, Google's link to the site will have the trailing slash (as it should)--a domain name is _not_ a URL--it is a domain name. It becomes a URL when a directory specification, possibly with an optional file specification, is appended (such as a / for the root directory).

(If a directory is specified, but not a file, ther server will return either an index page, a directory listing, or a notice that the directory is not allowed to be listed.)

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Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
SEO Tools, Toys, and Packages : free tools to directly SEO-augment your sites;
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Ok, thanks for the comments everyone. I've pretty much decided that I *should* be using the trailing slash, even though it doesn't make a difference on my server (b/c those aren't real directories -> they are variables which I'm using mod_rewrite to split and redirect).

However, this poses a problem. Every, or most, of the URLs that Google has spidered of mine so far do not have the trailling slash and they have it this way. Would it dillute my PR, or perhaps jeopardize my status at all, if I were to suddenly change the URL structure throughout my entire site and add the trailing slash in all my links, etc?

I was more or less waiting for this:


You have made yourself a problematic situation, but, as it lays on the table, I think you'd best not start switching.

As I have said, when you have a URL structured like--

http://www.mywonderfulsite.com/something/somethingelse

(notice no trailing slash) and that URL delivers a particular actual page, then adding the trailing slash will confound things mightily by turning the URL into a call for a default page from a directory of that name. It was, in my opinion, a major error in judgement to set the thing up that way--bare somethingelse is not a conventional file or page name--but now it's "in for a penny, in for a pound": you need to stick to that form, because that's how Google and your backlinkers know you.

Unless, of course, you want to set everything right at once, and use a boat load of lines in your .htaccess file to sort it all out via 301 Redirects. But it sounds like a boatload of ill-considered 301 Redirects is what got you here in the first place.

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Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
SEO Tools, Toys, and Packages : free tools to directly SEO-augment your sites;
for example, quickly add add over 100,000 relevant white-hat pages to any site.