Canonicalising To A 301?

[RocketZando]

Hi there,

We currently make use of a 301 rule to always return the trailing slash version of any URL on the site.

Recently, it seems that the canonical tag was implemented incorrectly. Here's an example:

http://www.zando.co.za/women/shoes    is redirected to

http://www.zando.co.za/women/shoes/  (trailing slash)

However, our canonical tags, across the site, are going to the non-slash version, as follows:

I'm right in saying this really damaging? Also, if I instruct the Dev team to implement a site-wide fix by adding the trailing slash in all cases, can I expect any weird side affects on my current rankings/indexation?

If so, I can only imagine it being a short-term thing as Google re-aligns it's index of our site?

I treat canonical tags with plenty of caution.

Any insights appreciated.

Cheers,

P.

[RocketZando]

Thanks Good Doctor,

Cheers,

P

[BlueprintMarketing]

I agree with everything Dr. Peat said. Those are all extremely Likely reasons for your site showing a Forward / or not and strongly agree with Dr. Peat you should follow tip and match the correct rel="canonical regardless of anything. Even if you think the URL is An exact match one you have told Google you want to have rel="canonical Happy New Year! Tom

[Dr-Pete]

It's certainly a mixed signal. It's hard to predict what Google will do, and they may just ignore the canonical in that case, but I've seen enough problems that I wouldn't take chances with it. My gut feeling is that the 301 is probably overpowering the canonical (and your Google index is showing the trailing slash in most cases), but I'd fix the canonical. You could see some short-term bounce, but I think it's for the best long-term.

FYI, you've got a ton of title tag duplication within the "/women" pages - you might want to look at adding some uniqueness to the deeper pages. That's unrelated - just something I noticed.

[RocketZando]

Precisely,

After reading various sources, it seems that the fix's pro's would outweigh any possible short term fluctuations.

Besides, I'm sure Google is smart enough to treat trailing-vs-non-trailing-slash URLs without as much variation as, say, one with a different structure.

Wonder if encoding has plays a part? Hahaha. More questions... I do love SEO.

[BlueprintMarketing]

PS not all of your  webpages shows no forward /

http://www.zando.co.za/Nike-Brazilia-Duffle-Bag-Purple-47577.html

[BlueprintMarketing]

Best practices states that you should put the URL is it shows in browser. So if there is a /  the rel="canonical should have  / hope that that helps

should be

all the best,

Tom