Posts Tagged ‘301’

To Slash or Not to Slash. That’s A Server Header Question

Posted in SEO on April 22nd, 2010 by Web Optimist – 2 Comments

By Richard V. Burckhardt

Slash or not to slash
Keep in mind that Google sees a URL with a / at then end as a totally different URL from one without.

Uh, not that kind of slashing!

Let’s say you are setting up your keyword rich links to point to a subdirectory. Should the link point to:

http://www.somedomain.com/subdirectory or to http://www.somedomain.com/subdirectory/ with a “/” at the end?

Most new SEOs won’t know the difference, thinking that if it gets the visitor there, it works, right?

There is a problem with this thinking. Let me introduce you to checking server headers. To do this, I’ll use my favorite server header tool over at http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp . You just pop a URL in the field and you’ll get a page back telling you how it did. Here are some of the possible results:

200 OK - This means everything’s cool.

301 Moved Permanently – The URL you typed in is properly being redirected to a new location.

302 Found – This means your URL has temporarily been moved and found at the new location.

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