URL rewriting, to "/" or not to "/"

[suedeapple]

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Just wondered on peoples preference on url rewriting..

www.myfruitandvegsite.com/category/fruit

or

www.myfruitandvegsite.com/category/fruit/

When or when wouldnt you use a trailing forward slash? Does it effect SEO? and which does google prefer?

[trevHCS]

It's always best to use the ending / as I've seen Google see the two as different URLs even if it shouldn't (might have been a broken web server). The slash version is the correct one for all URLs which don't end in a filename.

Infact if it was a standard URL the web server should send a 301 redirect from url.com/example -> url.com/example/ which the web browser must follow and thus increases requests and time to load the page.

Not sure if the above applies if the URL is rewritten, but I suspect it might still trigger, so stick with ending slash would be my advice. Also makes sure the search engines all see one version and don't split the page popularity between the two versions.

Trev