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 a trailing slash after the domain name
-
My campaign analysis is predictably listing domain.com and domain.com/ as repeated content. I've searched and searched but cannot find a way to force a trailing slash on the end of the domain name unless there's a file or directory after it..
Is there a way to accomplish this using .htaccess
-
I've gone with this .htaccess from your soulgorithm.com:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.co.uk [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://domain.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.)/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule (.)/$ $1.php [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule .* %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/ [R=301,L]and I'm now getting the results I'm after. I'm getting similar behaviour to you in Firefox and IE, which explains a lot. I really appreciate the length you've gone to to help me here, so big thank you!
-
Test Site: soulgorithm.com
In the .htaccess file for this site:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.soulgorithm.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://soulgorithm.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.)/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule (.)/$ $1.html [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.)/$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule (.)/$ $1.php [L]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule .* %{REQUEST_FILENAME}/ [R=301,L]Which has the following effect:
soulgorithm.com > soulgorithm.com/
(slash is added, but only shows in IE and looks
likes its being stripped by Firefox but page
still loads fine)
soulgorithm.com/ > soulgorithm.com/
(loads fine, but only shows in IE and lookslikes its being stripped by Firefox but page
still loads fine)
soulgorithm.com/test > soulgorithm.com/test/
(loads fine, slash even shows in FF)
soulgorithm.com/test/ > soulgorithm.com.com/test/
(loads fine)
soulgorithm.com/testdir > soulgorithm.com/testdir/
(loads fine, slash even shows in FF)
soulgorithm.com/testdir/ > soulgorithm.com.com/testdir/
(loads fine, slash even shows in FF)
Let me know if this is what you see. I feel likes its getting close to working.
-
Thanks for sticking with this. Rather than me share the domain, do you know of any example sites using your code (or similar) which add a trailing slash after the domain name? I'd like to rule out my browser stripping it out.
-
Man, my mind is blown right now. I'm not giving up and hopefully someone else can chime in on this discussion and shed some light on this issue.
The code provided should have worked. Let me look into it some more. Also, if you don't mind what is the actual domain name?
-
That's right - nothing in there but the code you supplied.
-
Is this the only thing you have in your htaccess file?
if not, I would remove everything in the file and only have what i posted above, and let me know if it works.
-
Nope. Still no trailing slashes being added.
-
Try just the following:
Let me know if this works for you.
RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !index.php RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301] -
Thanks for the reply, but this looks like all the other examples I've found. My .htaccess file looks like this :
DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L,QSA]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
RewriteRule ^(.)$ http://domain.co.uk/$1/ [L,R=301]But I get the following redirects going on:
domain.co.uk > domain.co.uk (ie nothing happens)
domain.co.uk/ > domain.co.uk (ie slash is removed)
domain.co.uk/page2 > domain.co.uk/page2 (ie nothing happens, but page loads)
domain.co.uk/page2/ > Internal server error
Any ideas?
-
Hi Clive.
Yes, you can easily do this with an .htaccess file, here is the code:
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301]Just replace "domain.com" with your proper url for your site. This should be all that is needed.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Company name ranking
Hi all, I hope somebody can share their thoughts on the below. A web designer launched my client's new website and I have been tasked with the SEO. I was approached with an immediate problem, www.clientswebsite.co.uk was ranking 9th for their company name after being indexed by Google. The search results above www.clientswebsite.co.uk were related to my client but not all, for example a direct competitor was also ranking. I have been working on the SEO for 2-3 weeks and I just managed to get to 3rd position for the company name, and then www.clientswebsite.co.uk disappeared from page 1! And now instead, an irelevant sub page is now ranking for the company name on page 2 (a contact page). I have checked and the home page is still indexed (did a site: check). The only problem software picks up is a redirect chain (http://homepage -> http://www.homepage -> https://homepage) the web developers said it wouldn't impact rankings (when I asked them to edit the htaccess file to fix it) I've listed below the SEO tasks I completed whilst attempting to rank the company name: I set up analytics and webmaster tools, in which I set up preferred domain (www) Added a sitemap Edited meta data making sure company name was included I contacted the websites above www.clientswebsite.co.uk that were relevant and asked them to place a link linking to their new website, I was successful with a couple of these. I placed www.clientswebsite.co.uk on all of their social media profiles I reformatted headers on their home page, making sure the H1 included my client's company name I found 2 extra versions of my client's home page (not exact copies, but very similar content) that had been published, so I decided to 301 redirect these to the correct home page Activated SSL and forced to HTTPS I would really appreciate it if anyone could share their thoughts here, whether it be explanations or possible solutions Adam
Technical SEO | | SO_UK0 -
Old domain to new domain
Hi, A website on server A is no longer required. The owner has redirected some URLS of this website (via plugin) to his new website on server B -but not all URLS. So when I use COMMAND site:website A , I see a mixture of redirected URLS and not redirected URLS.Therefore two websites are still being indexed in some form and causing duplication. However, weirdly when I crawl with Screaming Frog I only see one URL which is 301 redirected to the new website. I would have thought I'd see lots of URLs which hadn't been redirected. How come it is different to using the site:command? Anyway, how do I move to the new website completely without the old one being indexed anymore. I thought I knew this but have read so many blogs I've confused myself! Should I: Redirect all URLS via the HTACESS file on old website on server A? There are lots of pages indexed so a lot of URLs. What if I miss some? or Point the old domain via DNS to server B and do the redirects in website B HTaccess file? This seems more sensible but does this method still retain the website rankings? Thanks for any help
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Redirect typo domains
Hi, What's the "correct" way of redirecting typo domains? DNS A record goes to the same ip address as the correct domain name Then 301 redirects for each typo domain in the .htaccess Subdomains on typo urls still redirect to www or should they redirect to the subdomain on the correct url in case the subdomain exists?
Technical SEO | | kuchenchef0 -
Rel canonical between mirrored domains
Hi all & happy new near! I'm new to SEO and could do with a spot of advice: I have a site that has several domains that mirror it (not good, I know...) So www.site.com, www.site.edu.sg, www.othersite.com all serve up the same content. I was planning to use rel="canonical" to avoid the duplication but I have a concern: Currently several of these mirrors rank - one, the .com ranks #1 on local google search for some useful keywords. the .edu.sg also shows up as #9 for a dirrerent page. In some cases I have multiple mirrors showing up on a specific serp. I would LIKE to rel canonical everything to the local edu.sg domain since this is most representative of the fact that the site is for a school in Singapore but...
Technical SEO | | AlexSG
-The .com is listed in DMOZ (this used to be important) and none of the volunteers there ever respoded to requests to update it to the .edu.sg
-The .com ranks higher than the com.sg page for non-local search so I am guessing google has some kind of algorithm to mark down obviosly local domains in other geographic locations Any opinions on this? Should I rel canonical the .com to the .edu.sg or vice versa? I appreciate any advice or opinion before I pull the trigger and end up shooting myself in the foot! Best regards from Singapore!0 -
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 -
Block a sub-domain from being indexed
This is a pretty quick and simple (i'm hoping) question. What is the best way to completely block a sub domain from getting indexed from all search engines? One item i cannot use is the meta "no follow" tag. Thanks! - Kyle
Technical SEO | | kchandler0 -
What is best practice for redirecting "secondary" domain names?
For sites with multiple top-level domains that have been secured for a business or organization, I'm curious as to what is considered best practice for setting up 301 redirects for secondary domains. Is it best to do the 301 redirects at the registrar level, or the hosting level? So that .net, .biz, or other secondary domains funnel visitors to the correct primary/main domain name. I'm looking for the "best practice" answer and want to avoid duplicate content problems, or penalties from the search engines. I'm not trying to game the system with dozens of domain names, simply the handful of domains that are important to the client. I've seen some registrars recommend hosting secondary domains, and doing redirects from the hosting level (and they use meta refresh for "domain forwarding," which I want to avoid). It seems rather wasteful to set up hosting for a secondary domain and then 301 each URL.
Technical SEO | | Scott-Thomas0 -
Using hyphenated sub-domains or non-hyphenated sub-domains? What is the question! I Any takers?
For our corporate business level domain, we are exploring using a hyphenated sub-domain foir a project. Something like www.go-figure.extreme.com I thought from a user perspective it seems cluttered. The domain length might also be an issue with the new Algorithm big G has launched in recent past. I know with past experience, hyphenated domains usually take longer to index, as they are used by spammers more frequently and can take longer to get out of the supplementary index. Our company site has over 90 million viewers / year, so our brand is well established and traffic isn't an issue. This is for a corporate level project and I didn't have the answer! Will this work? anyone have any experience testing this. Any thoughts will help! Thanks, Rob
Technical SEO | | RobMay0