Aren't domain.com/page and domain.com/page/ the same thing?
-
Hi All,
A recent Moz scan has turned up quite a few duplicate content notifications, all of which have the same issue. For instance: domain.com/page and domain.com/page/ are listed as duplicates, but I was under the impression that these pages would, in fact, be the same page.
Is this even something to bother fixing or a fluke scan? If I should fix it does anyone know of an .htaccess modification that might be used?
Thanks!
-
Wow, thanks guys! This is indeed an enterprise level site, so especially thanks to CleverPhD for the breakdown on trailing slash v. no trailing slash. Redirecting as we speak.
-
You bet Jesse - thank you. I do work at the enterprise level and so it would make sense that this would become a bigger issue on larger sites. I would still say it could become an issue on smaller sites as people do tend to add the slash at the end and so you end up with a duplicate issue.
Full disclosure, I run sites due to legacy issues do not end with the slash. They run just fine. The key is to be consistent.
P
-
Interesting Clever, thanks for posting that. To be honest your points all make perfect sense. I've just never had that situation come up. To Frank's point, organization with or without slash doesn't matter much for smaller sites but as you said I can see how using the slash could make your analytics tracking much easier.
Perhaps it depends on the size of the site, but either way I hadn't thought of it in that detailed-a-manner and am glad you posted it.
Thanks as always !
-
As others have already mentioned, it is typically considered a separate page. Whether you choose with the slash or without is your preference. If a site is small I will typically opt for with/without the slash, but if a site is large and there are many different pages and the structure gets quite large I default to using the slash.
Not sure if the site you are mentioning is Wordpress based or not, if so there there are plugins that can help with this issue as well.
-
They are different and you need to setup 301s to correct, also check all your menus etc to make sure that you use them consistently - this includes in emails etc - consistency is the key.
You can go with slashes or no slashes, as long as you are consistent, I have run sites both ways.
I will disagree with Jesse one thing - I would strongly recommend using the ending slash. I have several reasons why.
-
The url ending in a slash traditionally represents a folder with pages/documents/images inside that folder. Used to be that we would use a URL like /folder/index.htm with index.htm being the default page. It used to be that if you did not designate any file as an index file, assuming the permissions on the folder were set correctly, you would see all the content in that folder. Later, you could designate a default index file and so when you left it blank by ending in a slash it would show the content of the default page without needing the index.htm to be included. Now this issue can cause duplicate content problems (but that is another story).
-
Knowing all that above, many of your web analytic and other reporting software would create reports using a given folder Google Analytics is a good one. If you use the conent drilldown tool, it automatically organizes your reports by looking at the slashes and then grouping pageviews and visits according to the folder structure.
3) Separately, you had development code that used the folder system in the url as a way to parse what the user wants and then deliver a page. This is why you can now have a url like /article/file and you do not need a .htm or .php or .html at the end as the server knows what to do with it without seeing the final extensions.
What happens then is that you end up with URLs like this
/toys/age6-8
/toys/age6-8/redball
/toys/age6-8/blueball
/toys/age9-10
/toys/age9-10/remote-car
/toys/age9-10/remote-control-train
You can see this is a toy store and they are grouping toys by age. Balls are better for younger children vs remote vehicles for older children. In your GA reporting, if you assume that a slash indicates a new folder
/toys/age6-8 would not be included in the report with the products as it would be seen as a page within the /toys/ folder. Same thing with /toys/age9-10
You have your most important page not grouped with all the products it contains.
This is one of the reasons that I prefer ending with the slash. Can you do it the other way, sure, but it just adds more hassle. The folder ending in a slash is a convention that most people follow and frankly, you will find that users also tend to end in a slash when they put in a url. You end up with links to your site where they have a slash and one is needed.
Old habits are hard to break and so this is why I recommend going with the ending slash.
-
-
As for the htaccess fix, a simple 301 redirect from one to the other will do it. I recommend going with the no-slash format.
-
Technically they are different URLs.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html
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
-
How to remove 404 pages wordpress
I used the crawl tool and it return a 404 error for several pages that I no longer have published in Wordpress. They must still be on the server somewhere? Do you know how to remove them? I think they are not a file on the server like an html file since Wordpress uses databases? I figure that getting rid of the 404 errors will improve SEO is this correct? Thanks, David
Moz Pro | | DJDavid0 -
Identifying Bad Domains
In the past week my website has not been doing well. How can I look at a list of domains linking to my website to identify which ones are harmful and need to be removed. Is there a checklist of criteria that a linking doamin to meet for me to remove it? Thank you for your help.
Moz Pro | | andrewlegal0 -
Comparing Domain Authority Scores
Since your scale (like PageRank) is a logarithmic scale, it makes it hard to judge the distance between 2 scores. Can you give me a rule of thumb. For PageRank, each jump is an exponential jump - so that a PR6 is perhaps 10 times stronger than a PR5. What is the log base that SEOMoz uses. Should I assume that a 60 is 10 times stronger than a 50? This is important when it comes to measuring progress because growth is going to get more difficult as you move up the scale and I need to communicate the distance between our current Authority score and our goal. Thank You!
Moz Pro | | apo11o1770 -
Your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines
Hi All The message below I received from google webmaster, please tell me how I solve this problem Dear site owner or webmaster of http://testedfatburners.com/, We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see ourWebmaster Help Forum for support. Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team
Moz Pro | | mkm1040 -
Does a url with no trailing slash (/)need A special redirect to the same url with a trailing slash (/)
I recently moved a website to wordpress which the wordpress default includes the trailing slash (/) after ALL urls. My url structure used to look like: www.example.com/blue-widgets Now it looks like: www.example.com/blue-widgets/ Today I checked the urls using Open Site Explorer and below is what I discovered: www.example.com/blue-widgets returned all my links, authority, etc HOWEVER there is a note that says........."Oh Hey! it looks like that URL redirects to www.example.com/blue-widgets/. Would you like to see data for that URL instead?" When I click on the link to THAT URL I get a note that says_.....NO DATA AVAILABLE FOR THIS URL._ Does this mean that www.example.com/blue-widgets/ really has NO DATA? How do I fix this?
Moz Pro | | webestate0 -
Exact match .ORG/.INFO vs. all query terms .COM - proof?
Hello world 🙂 I have searched among tons of quality articles here on forums, but surprisingly I haven't found topic that goes into the deep water when it comes to a specific KW rich domain problem. Let me first state that I'm mainly based this topic on the information found in following blog posts by randfish (that guru with the beard). http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited and http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analysis-of-ranking-elements My questions is only related to RANKING aspect of the domains - NOT how is sounds, smell or dance. As all good simple .COM KW domain combinations are already taken, only thing that is left is to be a bit creative using non .COMs exact match, hyphens .COM exact match, all query terms .COM with a letter or word added etc. QUESTION and case study I found a good keyword phrase, let us called it 'super domain' with low competition & high monthly searches and great revenue possibilities. Naturally, first step is to acquire a exact match .COM domain (EMD). But, of course, that is not possible because 'superdomain.com' and super-domain.com has already been taken by some greedy domain broker waiting someone to pay $1.000.000 for it. Not an option. What options do I got? OPT1) superdomainA.COM (keyword phrase with added 'A' at the end) OR OPT2) superdomain.ORG/NET/INFO (keyword phrase on non .COM TLD) I couldn't find any studies with test and clear results regarding this subject. This is VERY important because, regarding to the links I posted, there is a 0.10 better correlation if choosing OPT1) superdomainA.COM, even if using exact match domain OPT2) superdomain.ORG/NET. But they haven't been cross tested in that results in the same post. So it's big '?' sign to me. As SEO market is getting more and more competitive, it is important to not leave anything to chance. I would appreciate if randfish, or anybody else could give some inputs about this. Thanks in advance!
Moz Pro | | RetroOnline0 -
Domain and Page authority dropped on home page
My two strongest links did not show up in the latest Open Site Explorer run. Business.com and BOTW.com...Linking domains went from 21 to 15. Domain dropped 3 pts and Page authority dropped 3 pts I believe. Is there a function in SEOmoz.org that lets you track your domain scores over time? Thanks, Boo
Moz Pro | | Boodreaux0