Which Version Url to Use for Canonical Tags and in General for Homepage.

[Ruchy]

I want to put canonical tags on the homepage of a site.

cant figure out the version of URL of the homepage should be with a / at the end or without the /                                  ( www.example.com of www.example.com/ )

if I put into the google the URL with /  I get the URL without the / in my browser, and it isn't showing as a redirect in my moz extension or other tools. But when I copy the URL from browser and paste elsewhere it pastes with a /

I have two questions

1 - in general how does it work with URLs of homepages - I see this happening with lots of sites?

2 -  which URL should I set as the canonical version of my homepage?

Thanks so much

[Joe_Stoffel]

Hi Ruchy,

Honestly, it shouldn't make a difference, Google looks at homepage URLs with and without the trailing slash as equivalent. For my clients, I typically include the slash (" / ") at the end of the homepage canonical tag, but again, this shouldn't matter.

I actually commented on a similar post that discusses how search engines view these two different variations of the homepage, you can see that here.

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Google looks at root domain URLs with and without trailing slashes as equivalent, see the resources below.

1. "Should we always add the final / or avoid it? Does it make a difference?" Answer: "There's no difference between them. (As opposed to not putting a slash on links into a directory, for example.)" (source)

2. "Rest assured that for your root URL specifically, http://example.com is equivalent to http://example.com/ and can’t be redirected even if you’re Chuck Norris." (Source - Google Webmasters Blog)

[Ruchy]

Thanks, Joe

that was really helpful.

I appreciate the sources that you sent.

[Joe_Stoffel]

You are welcome!