Duplicate content with a trailing slash /

[Richard555]

Hi, I 've pages like this:

A) www.example.com/file/

B) www.example.com/file

Just two questions:

1. Does Google see this as duplicate content?

2. Best to 301 redirect B to A?

Many thanks

Richard

PS I read previous threads re the subject, it sounded like there was a bug in SEOMoz but I was not absolutely clear. Apologies if this is going over old ground.

[UnderRugSwept]

Yes, that can be seen as duplicate content. Not only those but also

www.example.com/file/

www.example.com/file

www.example.com/file//index.html

are all the same but can be seen as different.

My preference is to set the redirect to www.example.com/file

However, with blog-based sites, many prefer to leave the trailing slash in there.

[irvingw]

While the engines may be smart to realize it's one of the same, all SEO gurus seem to agree that it's not worth the risk and you should use the htacess to standardize on either using the slash or not. Once decided, make sure all internal links are consistent with your decision.

More discussion can be found here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/trailing-slash-at-end-of-url

[AndreVanKets]

1. Does Google see this as duplicate content?

Yes, these pages are seen as duplicates.

2. Best to 301 redirect B to A?

Yes, Redirect B to A

You could also create a rule somehow to redirect or add the / to all URL's without a trailing slash just for piece of mind that you wont have to do this again.

Greg

[Richard555]

Many thanks everybody, thats great....

All the best

Richard