Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to force Wordpress to remove trailing slashes?
-
I've searched around quite a bit for a solution here, but I can't find anything. I apologize if this is too technical for the forum.
I have a Wordpress site hosted on Nginx by WP Engine. Currently it resolves requests to URLs either with or without a trailing slash.
So, both of these URLs are functional:
<code>mysite.com/single-post</code>
and
<code>mysite.com/single-post/</code>
I would like to remove the trailing slash from all posts, forcing
mysite.com/single-post/
to redirect tomysite.com/single-post
. I created a redirect rule on the server:^/(.*)/$ -> /$1
and this worked well for end-users, but rendered the admin panel inaccessible. Somewhere, Wordpress is adding a trailing slash back on to the URL
mysite.com/wp-admin
, resulting in a redirect loop. I can't see anything obvious in .htaccess.Where is this rule adding a trailing slash to 'wp-admin' established?
Thanks very much
-
WPEis run on a base server using Apache with a Nginx proxy so you can use the WP engine 301 redirect system built-in or you can simply add a redirect to the HTAccess file. If you would like to use a tool to do this I recommend this one another alternative is to ask WP engine to make a change for you.https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/non-slash-vs-slash-urls/ApacheJust copy to your htaccess:```
https://example.com/page/**https://example.com/page** ``` <label for="nonslash">**Slash to Non-Slash URLs**</label> > <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine on > RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d > RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]</ifmodule> **Non-Slash to Slash URLs** ``` ****Apache** https://example.com/page**
> <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine on > RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f > RewriteRule ^(.*[^/])$ /$1/ [L,R=301]</ifmodule>
USEING Nginx to do
**https://example.com/page/**
As you see, there is one tiny difference between those two URLs, and it’s the trailing slash at the end. In order to avoid duplicate content, if you are using Nginx you can **remove the trailing slash from Nginx** URLs. Place this inside your virtual host file in the server {} block configuration: > ``` > rewrite ^/(.*)/$ /$1 permanent; > ``` Full example: > ``` > server { > listen 80; > server_name www.mysite.com; > rewrite ^/(.*)/$ /$1 permanent; > } > ``` All done, now Nginx will remove all those trailing slashes.
USEING Nginx to do
https://example.com/page
https://example.com/page/Add a trailing slash by placing this inside your virtual host file in the server {} block configuration: > ``` > rewrite ^(.*[^/])$ $1/ permanent; > ``` Full example: > ``` > server { > listen 80; > server_name www.mysite.com; > rewrite ^(.*[^/])$ $1/ permanent; > } > ``` From now on, Nginx should add your trailing slash automatically to every url * https://www.scalescale.com/tips/nginx/add-trailing-slash-nginx/ * https://www.scalescale.com/tips/nginx/nginx-remove-trailing-slash/ I hope this helps, Tom
-
Hi John, sorry ive been on leave so not checked back on the forums.
Glad it looks like its working for you. I dont think the comments do anything except signify where word press has begun writing to the .htaccess (i dont run wordpress so can't be sure). Normally comments do nothing but signify something useful to the user.
I can try to breakdown the code a little for you, but my htaccess isn't fantastic so its by no means complete.
Firstline: RewriteCond%{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-d
RewriteCond% = This says use this condition if....
{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-d = ... is NOT a directoryRewriteRule^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
I believe this bit takes a snapshot of the url upto the final / then rewrites it to that snapshot.The combination of these must mean it doesn't affect your wordpress admin directory. I know this code can break if your install is within a directory (as is discussed in the stackover flow link) but they have provided a solution for that in that topic. I would say test if on your live website to make complete sure it will work as this may be slightly different to your local install. Have a back-up ready just incase it doesn't.
Make sure you check every url including
Homepage
Pages
Posts
Category Pages
Sub Category Pages
Post Pages
Any images or filesTo make sure it is working as expected on all of them.
-
Thanks so much, ATP! It looks like writing the condition into .htaccess does the trick—at least for my local install. Is this because the commands located within the
BEGIN WordPress
END WordPress
comments only apply to URLs outside of the WP admin area?
Thanks again, ATP—that was a very thorough and helpful response!
-
Hi John
Did ATP's solution help you out? Let us know if we can look into this further!
-
Hi John,
I asked something similar myself something myself but im on the Magento platform. This should matter as the solution wasn't platform specific. It just involved editing htaccess file. If your up for editing your .htacccess file then it could be of some use. The topic URL is below and it contains multiple solutions for editing and removing the / and the debugging process we went through along the way. (Courtesy of Andy and Dirk) Hopefully its of some use to you
https://moz.com/community/q/cms-pages-multiple-urls
SUMMARY:
If you know how to edit your .htaccess and your ready to dive straight in this code should do it.RewriteCond%{REQUEST_FILENAME}!-d
RewriteRule^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]If you want the page with explanations and walk-through please see the original topic as editing your htaccess badly can cause all sorts of errors.
Edit: I realised i was probably a tiny bit lazy and should of probably included this link which is the original link i got sent from stackoverflow with instructions on how to to edit your .htaccess file.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21417263/htaccess-add-remove-trailing-slash-from-url
Dirks answer later in the post offer guidance on applying it to certain parameters which should prove helpful if your still having loop problems with the admin page.
-
Thanks for the replies, Donna, Martijn. I am running Yoast and considered adding the trailing slash, but:
-Most of the inbound links we have are to URLs with no slash
-The slash style seems a little dated in general-few sites use them these days.
I'd really love to just figure out how to solve the issue a little closer to the root.
-
Hi John,
It seems obvious, but why not go for a adding a trailing slash to every URL instead or removing it, would solve your issues at least.
-
Are you using the yoast SEO plugin? There is a setting under Advanced > Permalinks that forces a trailing slash onto URLs. I'd try looking at that first.
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 do you delete an admin user in wordpress that wont delete
I hired an indian company to do some work on three sites that I own. I used a freelancing platform and they have been banned and now when i check in my wordpress sites, the admin user will not delete. Everytime i try and delete them it comes back. I change the password and the email address, but when i check a couple of hours later it comes back again, giving them full control over my sites which they are playing around with. any help would be great. I have tried going into the cpanel but it still will not delete. my hosting company has tried to delete them but it is not working
Technical SEO | | in2townpublicrelations0 -
Should we remove category paths for better SEO?
We're looking to build some serious content and capitalise on long-tail keyword traffic for our sub-category pages, example for targeted keyword "designer dining tables". Example of current link: www.website.com/designer-furniture/designer-dining-tables.html Would removing the category paths help? Example result - www.website.com/designer-dining-tables More user friendly URLs and better for SEO would you suggest? The only problem is, if we removed the paths would this have a hit on our traffic? Any advice would be much appreciated. We are using Magento platform.
Technical SEO | | Jseddon920 -
Removing images from site and Image Sitemap SEO advice
Hello again, I have received an update request where they want me to remove images from this site (as of now its a bunch of thumbnails) current page design: http://1stimpressions.com/portfolio/car-wraps/ and turn it into a new design which utilized a slider (such as this): http://1stimpressions.com/portfolio/ They don't want the thumbnails on the page anymore. My question is since my site has a image sitemap that has been indexed will removing all the images hurt my SEO greatly? What would the recommended steps to take to reduce any SEO damage be, if so? Thank you again for your help, always great and very helpful feedback! 🙂 cheers!
Technical SEO | | allstatetransmission0 -
Authorship and Publisher on WordPress
I successfully enabled rel=publisher on our WordPress blog, and as a test I also enabled rel=authorship for a set of blog posts. (Tested both in Google's Rich Snippets Tester.) However, on the individual blog posts the publisher credit disappears. Is there a way to enable both to appear on blog posts?
Technical SEO | | ufmedia0 -
Exclude Child URLs from XML Sitemap Generator (Wordpress)
Hi all, I was recommended the XML Sitemap Generator for Wordpress by the very helpful Keith Bloemendaal and John Pring - however I can't seem to exclude child URLs. There is a section Exclude items and a subsection Exclude posts. I have tried inputting the URLs for the pages I don't want in the sitemap, however that didn't work. So I read that you have to include a list of "IDs" - not sure where on earth to find that info, tried the page name and the post= number from the URL, however neither worked. I hope somebody can point me in the right direction - and apologies, I am a Wordpress novice, and I got no answers from the Wordpress forums so turned right back to SEOmoz! Cheers.
Technical SEO | | markadoi840 -
Removing robots.txt on WordPress site problem
Hi..am a little confused since I ticked the box in WordPress to allow search engines to now crawl my site (previously asked for them not to) but Google webmaster tools is telling me I still have robots.txt blocking them so am unable to submit the sitemap. Checked source code and the robots instruction has gone so a little lost. Any ideas please?
Technical SEO | | Wallander0 -
Should WordPress themes be hard coded for better SEO?
In the interests of making my site faster I have recently come across the suggestion of removing unwanted PHP from my WooThemes WordPress theme. The suggestion is to hard code the choices I have made in the WordPress template to reduce on database calls. Has anyone actually done this to their WordPress theme before and seen any measurable results?
Technical SEO | | Wallander1 -
Trailing Slashes In Url use Canonical Url or 301 Redirect?
I was thinking of using 301 redirects for trailing slahes to no trailing slashes for my urls. EG: www.url.com/page1/ 301 redirect to www.url.com/page1 Already got a redirect for non-www to www already. Just wondering in my case would it be best to continue using htacces for the trailing slash redirect or just go with Canonical URLs?
Technical SEO | | upick-1623910