Im seeing a Dot after the / on a new project, never seen this before, any issues using this format ?

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

Ive got a new project and seeing a dot after the forward slash something ive never seen before what does it mean ?

Are there any seo issues regarding it, is it bad practice or fine to proceed using that format ?

Example below;

www.domain.co.uk/**.**cool-new-product

Thanks

Dan

[TranslateMediaLtd]

Hi Dan

This is likely to be a coding error where the dot has been placed there by accident.

Dots are allowed in URLs. For instance, it's common to have dots in versioning web service interfaces

e.g. example.com/2.0/stuff

However, it's not very clean so I would attempt to get this resolved.

[Dan-Lawrence]

thanks but does seem to be on most site pages ?

if 'fixed' it would that require 301 redirects from old dot version to new non dot version (since old established pages) ?

cheers

dan

[TranslateMediaLtd]

It might be on most pages but still be an error - for instance if you're using mod_rewrite and the dot has been placed in the rewrite rule then a single error could potentially affect many pages.

If these pages rank well and it's for purely aesthetic reasons that you'd like to remove the dot, then you may want to consider leaving the pages as they are since using a 301 redirect may result in a loss of some of the existing PageRank.

[TranslateMediaLtd]

Sorry Dan. I feel I didn't really answer your question properly.

What I would do is check if these pages have any external links using something like Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO. If they don't, then it would be fine to change the URLs and 301 redirect the existing pages to the new ones as it's likely that the existing PageRank is passed from your own internal links. If external links do exist then you might want to consider doing nothing - depending on the authority of these links.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks Yusef you answered fine originally - i know about this bit but thanks for taking time commenting again anyway