All of my wordpress blogs write their urls with a slash at the end, but one specific one doesn't. So I'm just wondering what is the influence of the slash (/) at the end of an url on SEO. Let me briefly explain what slash I mean. It's the slash at the end of urls that don't end with html or php extensions, i.e.: www.domainname.com/folder1/folder2/foldername/ One can also go and write it like this: www.domainname.com/folder1/folder2/foldername without the slash at the end. That specific wordpress blog of mine rewrites urls without the slash at the end, but places links internally with that slash. I can click on it and it will take me to the page. But I was wondering what the influence on SEO is. Does anyone know?
Whether you have a slash at the end of the url or not does not matter. What you need to make sure is you are consistent throughout the site and establish a connical url for each page. If not you run the risk of search engines indexing multiple instances of the same page and spreading the page rank. Most SEO plugins have options for connical url's. I know the All in One SEO Pack does. If you are using the Genesis framework from Studiopress they have that built into the SEO options as well.
It's really not worth worrying about. Everything little thing is not about SEO. This is pretty much the most insignificant thing that you can nit pick.
I have several blogs and yeah I have checked this same question earlier and what I have found is: THERE IS NO EFFECT OF / at the end of the URL. This was the result of 1 year of checking, which eventually I learnt at the year end. But, the SEO was good and the results are, as expected. There is no change. Dont worry about /
Thanks, but please note that this is not about the '/' slash as such, but about having urls in links with the slash (some internal links do have it) and without it. Google has only listed links without the slash after the last folder name. But the internal links on the blog do usually have that slash added.