Does having a \ on a URL make a difference?

[AHF_Furniture]

On our website we have CMS pages which end normally without a /. However when linking from web banners e.c.t it always adds a / on the end. Will this have a negative impact on SEO?

[JackSaville]

Hi there - The simplest thing to do is to:

1. choose a url variant (either with or without /) and apply it consistently across the site.

2. say you choose the "without /" version. Redirect all "with /" versions to the without version.

3. make sure the rel=canonical of each page points to the variant you choose (either the with or without traling slash variant).

4. when linking to a page on your site (from a banner for example) try to link to the variant you choose, otherwise Googlebot has to follow a url redirect unnecessarily, which is an inefficient use of your crawl budget.

I hope this is clear.

Thanks!