Trailing Slash Policy in Pages | Yext Hitchhikers Platform
Policy Overview
By default, Pages automatically redirects URLs that end with a trailing slash to their non-trailing slash counterparts by issuing a 301 redirect. For example, accessing https://www.your-company.com/business/ will automatically trigger a 301 response, redirecting to https://www.your-company.com/business. This behavior is consistent across all sites hosted on our platform.
SEO Implications
There is a common misconception that the presence or absence of a trailing slash can significantly impact a site’s SEO performance. However, modern search engines are sophisticated enough to understand both URL formats, provided the usage is consistent across a site. Our approach ensures this consistency by standardizing the URL format, thereby avoiding potential SEO pitfalls such as duplicate content issues.
Moreover, the decision to exclude or include trailing slashes does not inherently affect a site’s SEO performance. What is crucial, however, is the consistency in URL structure across your website, which our platform guarantees by default.
Reverse Proxy Implications
As mentioned above, Pages automatically redirect URLs that end with a trailing slash to their non-trailing slash counterpart. It is advised that reverse proxies should either strip the trailing slash when sending the request to Pages or be equipped to handle the redirect being returned. Sitemaps will not include the trailing slashes for reverse proxies since generation happens based on the paths in Pages.