Canonical URLs all show trailing slash on main site pages - using Yoast SEO for Wordpress - how to correct
-
We are using Yoast for a number of our sites. We use naked domain as the canonical. I have noticed in the header tags that all our sites show the canonical URLs as having a trailing slash:
Example: http;//foxspizzajc.com, when I look at the source code, it shows the canonical as http;//foxspizzajc.com/
Of course, it is much more likely that all sites that link to us will not use the trailing slash - so preferably we do not want that to be the canonical - among other reasons.
Does this need to be fixed so the trailing slash is removed? I cannot see how to do this in Yoast SEO or in Permalinks structure for Wordpress.
Sorry for my ignorance.
Thanks for any help.
-
As far as I understand this, to your browser and to Google, they're the same page (this really seems to only apply to the homepage, other pages "/" really matters a lot).
I would not worry about changing the canonical, in fact it's technically the 'right" location of the page. When it comes to the HTTP docs, a request to the root needs "/". All modern web browsers add it back in for you even if it's not there. This is I believe why the canonical is set as it is there in yoast.
I covered this in a blog as someone asked this at Pubcon this year in a keynote.
http://www.winstondigitalmarketing.com/yoast-homepage-canonical-correct-include-trailing-slash/
-
I searched high and low for how to pull this off for the Yoast plugin specifically for my homepage. And wa-la, here was the answer in the community forum. Thanks guys! The advanced area in the yoast plugin for the homepage did the track. Just the homepage is set now to mywebsite.com instead of mewebsite.com/ Too me this is cleaner for SEO and local search SEO since all citations and inbound links are pointing to mywebsite.com NOT mywebsite.com/ Maybe Google will shine a bit more SERP love on me.
We shall see - better make an annotation not in Google analytics so I can reference if positive impact occurred.
-
I wrote to Yoast about this issue but they wouldn't respond because I am using the free plugin. I may respond and let them know about this discussion. Seems like a valid legitimate question, no? I would love an official response...
-
Hi Gianluca,
He was talking about a WordPress website which, by default, already has a 301 redirect in place on the homepage URL with the slash to the URL without the slash.
What's strange is that the Yoast SEO plugin points the homepage canonical tag to the URL with the slash - which is 301 redirected to the URL without!
I know search engines handle this very well and probably just ignore the canonical tag, but if you want it to be 100% correct (and why wouldn't you?) adding a the canonical tag in the Advanced tab is a very easy fix.
-
Gianluca - so you believe their is no reason to actually go in and fix this?
-
Hey Dave - great suggestion. I did that and it worked.
Doesn't it seem strange to you that Yoast, the master of SEO - automatically does this?
Kind of makes me think that Google doesn't see the trailing slash as a different URL for the homepage. Wouldn't their team catch this or address it? -
Why nobody is answering that the most normal thing to do should be redirecting via .htaccess the URL with the ending trailing hash to the one without (or viceversa)?
I mean, that's what I would do if it was just the case of the home page.
Said that, I would not worry that much, because that is one of those exact duplication cases that Google understands and solves with no problem.
-
What you could do is set up a filter in your functions.php file to change the URL based on the homepage but that's a bit too much maybe ;-). Next to that I think it's due to the fact that some web servers set up the trailing slash by default.
-
I find it strange that this happens with Yoast as it points the canonical tag for the homepage to a 301 redirect URL. I don't think it's a big problem as search engines seem to handle it well, but it's a problem that I wouldn't expect to see in such a popular and reputable SEO plugin.
If you use the plugin editor to remove the trailing slash you will remove the trailing slash from all pages of your site (something you may not want to do).
If you only want to remove the trailing slash from the homepage the easiest option would be to manually add the canonical URL without the trailing slash in the Advanced tab for Yoast when editing the homepage (as Linda said above). Doing this for one page will take you 2 seconds and fix the problem!
-
Hey Linda - I appreciate that - however when I read that article - its still seemed to open to debate if this is necessary to fix or not. Are you aware of a way to have it autofixed in wordpress? The only solution I read there was either hacking Yoast SEO to remove the trailing slash - or to manually edit every single page.
Am I over thinking this? I agreed with one poster who mentioned that Moz appears to have wanted this issue correct because their homepage shows that moz.com does not have the trailing slash in the canonical tag - nor does yoast.com.
Odd to me then that the Yoast plugin would then add this.
Are you aware of a way to remove it that is more effective?
-
A similar question has been asked here before: http://moz.com/community/q/how-do-i-get-rel-canonical-to-eliminate-the-trailing-slash-on-my-home-page .
"Login to your WordPress backend as an administrator and look for "Plugins" on the left menu and go to "Editor" within the plugins menu."
You can also edit the canonicals of individual pages and posts under the "Advanced" tab on the individual page or post editing page.
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
-
Block Moz (or any other robot) from crawling pages with specific URLs
Hello! Moz reports that my site has around 380 duplicate page content. Most of them come from dynamic generated URLs that have some specific parameters. I have sorted this out for Google in webmaster tools (the new Google Search Console) by blocking the pages with these parameters. However, Moz is still reporting the same amount of duplicate content pages and, to stop it, I know I must use robots.txt. The trick is that, I don't want to block every page, but just the pages with specific parameters. I want to do this because among these 380 pages there are some other pages with no parameters (or different parameters) that I need to take care of. Basically, I need to clean this list to be able to use the feature properly in the future. I have read through Moz forums and found a few topics related to this, but there is no clear answer on how to block only pages with specific URLs. Therefore, I have done my research and come up with these lines for robots.txt: User-agent: dotbot
Moz Pro | | Blacktie
Disallow: /*numberOfStars=0 User-agent: rogerbot
Disallow: /*numberOfStars=0 My questions: 1. Are the above lines correct and would block Moz (dotbot and rogerbot) from crawling only pages that have numberOfStars=0 parameter in their URLs, leaving other pages intact? 2. Do I need to have an empty line between the two groups? (I mean between "Disallow: /*numberOfStars=0" and "User-agent: rogerbot")? (or does it even matter?) I think this would help many people as there is no clear answer on how to block crawling only pages with specific URLs. Moreover, this should be valid for any robot out there. Thank you for your help!0 -
Moz WordPress Plugin?
WordPress is currently 18% of the Internet. Given its huge footprint, wouldn't it make sense for Moz to develop a WP plugin that can not only report site metrics, but help fix and optimize site structure directly from within the site? Just curious - I can't be the only one who wonders if I'm implementing Moz findings/recommendations correctly given the myriad of WP SEO plugins, authors, implementations.
Moz Pro | | twelvetwo.net4 -
Why does SEO moz show so many more duplicate page titles than webmaster
My SEO moz duplicate page titles are more than double the webmaster duplicate page titles. Plus, some of the items appearing in SEO moz are not really duplicates. Anyone else seeing this?
Moz Pro | | Stamats0 -
What is my next step for SEO?
My SEOMoz trial is drawing to a close and I have spent the month doing a ton of cleanup on my sites to remove errors and warning and otherwise comply with the basics of what I need to do to help position them. What I need to do now is take the next step and move them "up the ladder." SEOMoz looks good and I don't want this to sound like an ultimatum but I am also getting better at Google Analytics and their Webmaster tools. The question is, "Should I pay the money to SEOMoz or just work with google?" I am a very small shop with a very limited budget. Also, time is of the essence...I am prepared to continue my subscription if I can get an answer to the question: "What do I do next and how can SEOMoz help me where just knowing Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools can not?" Thanks a ton in advance!
Moz Pro | | bobbabuoy1 -
So many problems with my site.
Hi all.I was shocked when when i run a campaign and the warnings and recommendations about my site are so many.I know nothing about web design and the person who design it is asking me what are these problems and where did i get all these? any solution this are the problems 1.5XX (Server Error)
Moz Pro | | jubba
2.Duplicate Page Content(875)
3.Duplicate Page Title(875)
4.Overly-Dynamic URL(1048)
5.Too Many On-Page Links(60) and this is just a few of the problems.0 -
How do I scan down to 10000 pages?
Hi very new here I have set up 5 campaigns, all of fairly large sites. It appears seomoz has scanned 4 of them down to 250 and 1 down to 10000. the one a really want to see down to 10000, my own site is the one I started scanning first well over a week ago. How do I get seomoz to scan further? Thanks
Moz Pro | | First-VehicleLeasing0 -
Links from External Sites not Showing on OpenSite or Google Webmaster Tools
Hi, I asked this in another post, but didn't get a solid answer. For several websites I manage, I have access to their Google Webmaster Tools. When I put the site through there, or the link:// or SEOMoz's OpenSite link reporter, I get not even a fraction of the links that I know are pointing to the websites in question. Some of these links are from home pages or side columns, and some are from articles keep within a website, like at Inc.com. I wondered if the links in question were not themselves being indexed, but if I do a very specific search, I can pull them up in the search results. Is it just common knowledge that these link tools are not accurate? And to assume that somehow, search engines really do see all of the inbound links, even if our reporting tools don't. Thanks in advance!
Moz Pro | | lilactree0 -
Recent backlinks in Open Site Explorer as not showing
I saw the note today that the link index did it's monthly update, yet our site www.oznappies.com still only shows 1 linking root domain and I know there are many more links now. What do I need to do to get open Site Explorer to use the latest data? I enter our site, create the report and only see old information from 6 may 2011's link index. I have the same issue with competive link finder, links I know we have on the sites listed for our competitors are not showing for our site.
Moz Pro | | oznappies0