Very confused on site.com/ or not using a /

[GYMSN]

I'm wanting to put the rel="canonical" tag on my homepage but I'm not sure which to use?

How would you know what to use and always links to, http://www.site.com or http://www.site.com**/**

Personally I never knew there was a difference until I used the seomoz tool and I wasn't using the tag.

[Keszi]

Hi GYMSN,

If you have a rel=canonical already then you should not worry. canonical tag was released to solve the problem of creating duplicate content through different path to the same page.

If you already have the "/" in the canonical, then I wouldn't advice to make any change. You are ready to optimize further other parts of the website.

Good luck

Istvan

[GYMSN]

Hi Istvan.  Thanks for the response.  When I checked both urls I seem to be coming up with the same link count and overall metrics using opensiteexplorer.  All my sites are wordpress and I use all-in-one SEO and it appears to automatically add the /  via rel canonical so maybe this won't allow me to check which is best?

[Keszi]

Hi GYMSN,

Personally I would check the following before applying the canonical:

1. Check the incoming links to www.yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com/

2. Compare the two lists, is there a major difference between them? Which one is getting better links?

If you have answered the question, you know which one to point out.

I hope that helped,

Istvan