Hi Jeroen,

WordPress automatically appends a trailing slash to URLs, so this may prove difficult to accomplish with .htaccess. But then again, I’ve not tried to remove the trailing slash via the actual permalink settings.. are you able to get WordPress to not add any trailing slash? If so, you may not need to include a redirect, as WP should do it automatically..

Hi Jeff,

Yes, WordPress removes the trailing slash when I use /%postname%.

I’m just worried that I get duplicate content when I don’t use a 301, but then again, when I test using an external link with trailing slash, the trailing slash is removed automatically.

Maybe I can find back in the logs whether WordPress redirects it?

Thanks Jeff.

Yes WP should be redirecting to whatever permalink format you are using. There should be no need for .htaccess in this case, but as you suggest keeping an eye on your access logs for awhile is a good idea.

Just confirmed that WordPress did a 301 indeed!

Good to know. Solved!

Thanks Jeff.

So, WordPress does redirect, but in Webmastertools the duplicate contents start showing up. Hope Google will figure out soon that I have removed the trailing slash…

What are some examples of the URLs that are showing up in Webmaster Tools as duplicate content? (replace the domain name with example.com if needed)

These are the ones on the Duplicate title tags page on WebmasterTools

http://example.com/semua/resep/page/7/ | http://example.com/semua/resep/page/7
http://example.com/nasi-goreng-hijau/ | http://example.com/nasi-goreng-hijau
http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/10/ | http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/10
http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/9/ | http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/9
http://example.com/semua/resep/page/6/ | http://example.com/semua/resep/page/6
http://example.com/semua/resep/page/16/ | http://example.com/semua/resep/page/16
http://example.com/cookies-cokelat/ | http://example.com/cookies-cokelat
http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/6/ | http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/6
http://example.com/pudding-mocca-kelapa/ | http://example.com/pudding-mocca-kelapa
http://example.com/semua/resep/page/17/ | http://example.com/semua/resep/page/17
http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/8/ | http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/8
http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/7/ | http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/7
http://example.com/chicken-katsu-kobe/ | http://example.com/chicken-katsu-kobe
http://example.com/sate-bumbu-kelapa/ | http://example.com/sate-bumbu-kelapa
http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/11/ | http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/11
http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/3/ | http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/3
http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/4/ | http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/4
http://example.com/semua/buka-puasa/page/2/ | http://example.com/semua/buka-puasa/page/2
http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/5/ | http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/5
http://example.com/macaroni-saus-opor/ | http://example.com/macaroni-saus-opor
http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/2/ | http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/2
http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/11/ | http://example.com/semua/hidangan-sehari-hari/page/11
http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/10/ | http://example.com/semua/boncabe/page/10

Thanks

Wow, yeah that shouldn’t be happening with WP.. what happens when you try to access any of the URLs without a trailing slash? Also, check the date that Google detected the duplicates — it could be that googlebot crawled your site before you removed the conflicting .htaccess rules.

With or without trailing slash, the page opens at the url without the trailing slash. So the redirection is done right. It looks like (hopefully only) these pages were crawled when I was struggling with the htaccess rules.

Since the redirection is happening, it’s just a matter of time before the urls with trailing slash (=duplicate content) will dissapear from the webmastertools, right?

Thanks again, Jeff, for looking into the matter.

Yes I think that’s what’s happening, but keep a close eye on it until things start looking normal. It may take awhile for google to “forget” about those duplicate URLs, but they definitely shouldn’t be finding any new ones.

My pleasure to help, Jeroen – have a great week ahead.

Duplicate content 294 and counting…

Another disadvantage of removing the trailing slash is the stats in Analytics. Getting duplicate links there as well, one with index.php and the other one with / only.

Maybe not such a good move to remove the slash, but until now I have not yet seen a drop in visitors or avg. page position in Google.

After some months I’ll probably laugh about it ;)

One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that, even if your site doesn’t serve any duplicate content via slashed and slashless URLs, the search engines may encounter either type of URL while crawling around the Web. So for example, if I changed all of my URLs at Perishable Press to remove the trailing slash, there would still be lots of links around the Web that point to my content using the old slashed URL format. As Google et al discover such URLs, they are reported via Webmaster Tools, Analytics, etc. So your site may be fine in terms of duplicate content, but the rest of the Web will take some time to adjust accordingly. Either way, just an FYI, and also it’s good to hear that there hasn’t been a drop in visitors :)

Just for the record, duplicate content is now at 62 so it looks like Google is learning fast enough.

Ahh that’s great news.. thanks for keeping us posted :)

Yeah, it looks like things are going to be fixed soon. 18 left…

And no more duplicate content anymore… So things are fixed in about 3 weeks. Faster than I expected.

Case closed!