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Ask HN: Does Google consider .../somepage/ different from .../somepage?
We have recently migrated our system from PHP to RoR.
However, in our PHP implementation, all URLs were of the form:
http://somedns.com/hello-there/ and redirects the pages with a 301 without a / to the /.
(e.g. http://somedns.com/hello-there -> http://somedns.com/hello-there/)
Whereas, our new RoR implementation is of the form:
http://somedns.com/hello-there and redirects the pages with a 301 that end in / to the no /.
(e.g. http://somedns.com/hello-there/ -> http://somedns.com/hello-there)
Will Google understand that both pages are still the exact same, and leave our SERPs in a good place, or will we lose our SERPs due to the change in trailing /?
If Matt Cutts, a Google Search Developer, or an expert SEO/SERP HN'er could chime in that would be incredibly greatly appreciated.
Our team members are split 50/50 on whether or not this would affect SERPs or not, so it would be great if we could hear some opinions, thoughts, comment, complaints, criticisms regarding all of the above.
Thanks in advance
- martey 14y agoGoogle does view URLs with/without slashes differently, but since Google follows 301 redirects and they represent permanent moves, you should be fine. For more information, see http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-slash-...
- rasengan 14y agoI'm just a little fearful due to the should. :(
- AznHisoka 14y agoWith a 301 redirect, they are treated the same. That said, I recommend having a canonical URL with 1 consistent format in the meta tags just in case.
- illdave 14y agoGoogle will follow those 301s and realise that the old URLs are the same as the new URLs. From experience, you may see a slight drop in some search rankings when you make the switch as it can take Google some time to factor the 301s into it's algorithm, but remember not to panic - if you see any drops (big 'if'), it should only be temporary and I'd imagine you'd be back to normal within 2-3 weeks. Ideally though, you'd just configure Rails to use the trailing slash instead so you didn't have to risk a temporary drop. If it's too much of an issue or would be a hassle to do though, don't worry too much - you'll be fine.