Trailing slash on URLs

[webseoservices]

Hi everyone

My question is regarding trailing URLs in Wordpress

A designer setup a site and made the URL structure something like: www.website.com/description/ but I want to change it to www.website.com/description as this is more SEF

A trailing / was added to the permalink structure in Wordpress, if I change this will google see these as new URLs and will all the current URLs become 404?

Or should I just leave it?

Thanks in advance

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[brycebertola]

I haven't heard anything substantial about which method is best, do you have some content you used as a reference for this?

The change in structure will result in a redirect on the old versions (just tested it on one of my sites), I think google will see this as a 301 redirect.

[brycebertola]

What version of wordpress are you running? I just tested on v3.1 and it redirected the URL's, no 404's

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[PerchDigital]

Hi Darryl

There's no SEO advantage to having a trailing slash or not. Both are viewed the same. The important thing is to choose one and make sure it's consistent throughout the site. I prefer no slashes, cos it looks nicer, but that's just me and has absolutely no SEO relevance.

[webseoservices]

Hi Bryce, maybe I should have said more human friendly. As Gareth says the trailing slash is not as nice looking as the URL without