Trailing slash and rel="canonical"

[BethA]

Our website is in a directory format:

http://www.website.com/website.asp

Our homepage display URL is http://www.website.com which currently matches our to eliminate the possibility of duplicate content.

However, I noticed that in the SERPs, google displays the homepage with a trailing slash http://www.website.com/

My question: should I change the rel="canonical" to have a trailing slash?  I noticed one of our competitors uses the trailing slash in their rel="canonical"

Do potential benefits outweigh the risks?

I can PM further information if necessary.

Thanks for the assistance in advance...

[BethA]

Thanks for the help George and participating in the discussion.  I like the ease of the syntax involved with the non-www version, but I think people's and browsers natural inclination towards the www version makes it the most practical at this juncture.  Perhaps if you're building a new site the less traditional non-www might be used, but like yourself, I also prefer the www.

Thanks,

Marty

[GeorgeAndrews]

It's really up to you and your marketing team I suppose. Maybe ask which sounds better (e.g. "for the best jambalaya in town go to www.jambalaya.com!" vs. "for the best jambalaya in town go to jambalaya.com!").

I prefer www.example.com myself.

[BethA]

Yes, I realized my typo after I posted, thanks.  We do use the www version consistently, so no problem there.  That being said, what's your take on the www vs non-www preferred domain structure, I've noticed some popular site (mashable comes to mind) going away from the www preferred domain -- just like to hear differing opinions if/when you have the time.

Thanks,

Marty

[BethA]

Yes, I realized my typo after I posted, thanks.  We do use the www version consistently, so no problem there.  That being said, what's your take on the www vs non-www preferred domain structure, I've noticed some popular site (mashable comes to mind) going away from the www preferred domain -- just like to hear differing opinions if/when you have the time.

Thanks,

Marty

[GeorgeAndrews]

I don't think you will lose any link juice.

I also don't think it matters which URL you use for domain root. That said, it would matter if you were using http://www.domain.com versus http://domain.com. Otherwise, I don't think you need to worry.

[BethA]

Hello George, thank you for your helpful response.  While I knew it was the case for absolute URLs and subdirectories, I was unsure whether it also pertained to the root domain.  The link provided a helpful explanation, although SEO's have been, "reasonably sure that just about all search engines will be normalizing all those URLs to be the same," in the past only to have those certainties change unexpectedly.  That being said, I think the forum made a good point in saying,"search engines generally don't want to deliberately add duplicates to their index."

With our canonical URL set to www.domain.com , do you believe there will be any loss of link juice with backlinks using both the domain.com and domain.com/ , or will it just be a better indicator to the search engines that both URLs are one in the same?  Also do you think it matters that the domain root with the trailing slash is the one that shows up in the Google SERPs? --- to me that seems to indicate that Google prefers the root domain in directories to have a trailing slash

[GeorgeAndrews]

Hi Marty, there is really no difference between root domain URLs with or without trailing slashes.

Note, however, that this is not true for absolute URLs: http://www.example.com/page is not the same as http://www.example.com/page/. For absolute URLs that are not the root domain, you need to be pretty explicit about whether or not it has a trailing slash. Many content management systems (e.g. WordPress) will let you choose to have trailing slashes or not.

At this point, I don't think you need to do anything with your homepage canonical URL since it is the same as adding a trailing slash.

Hope this helps!