: Should I add a trailing slash to my canonical link or not? I'm just working through some PHP to set up a canonical link for each page on one of my websites and I'm wondering what's the

@Cofer257

I feel I should clear this up. Tim Fountain is correct in his comment.

Unlike directories, a domain with a trailing slash is exactly, 100% the same as one without. In other words, it's literally not possible to choose one or the other. So it makes zero difference which you put into your canonical.

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@Ann8826881

Adding or omitting a trailing slash to canonical links really doesn't matter to search engines, providing they both work.

It maybe be best however to stick with one or the other because Google treats each of these URL's separately, which can lead to duplicate content. See this for more on that: Google Webmaster Central Blog: To slash or not to slash

As indicated in that, it may also be wise to do a 301 redirect from the URL that you don't use to the URL that you do use to further avoid duplicate content.

In short, if you don't use a trailing slash in the links in your content, then don't use it in the canonical link either, and follow the same convention in your sitemap too.

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