

Ask HN: Does Google consider .../somepage/ different from .../somepage? - rasengan

We have recently migrated our system from PHP to RoR.<p>However, in our PHP implementation, all URLs were of the form:
http://somedns.com/hello-there/ and redirects the pages with a 301 without a / to the /.<p>(e.g. http://somedns.com/hello-there -&#62; http://somedns.com/hello-there/)<p>Whereas, our new RoR implementation is of the form:
http://somedns.com/hello-there and redirects the pages with a 301 that end in / to the no /.<p>(e.g. http://somedns.com/hello-there/ -&#62; http://somedns.com/hello-there)<p>Will Google understand that both pages are still the exact same, and leave our SERPs in a good place, or will we lose our SERPs due to the change in trailing /?<p>If Matt Cutts, a Google Search Developer, or an expert SEO/SERP HN'er could chime in that would be incredibly greatly appreciated.<p>Our team members are split 50/50 on whether or not this would affect SERPs or not, so it would be great if we could hear some opinions, thoughts, comment, complaints, criticisms regarding all of the above.<p>Thanks in advance
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martey
Google does view URLs with/without slashes differently, but since Google
follows 301 redirects and they represent _permanent_ moves, you should be
fine.

For more information, see
[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-
slash-...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-
to-slash.html)

~~~
rasengan
I'm just a little fearful due to the _should_. :(

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illdave
Google will follow those 301s and realise that the old URLs are the same as
the new URLs. From experience, you _may_ see a slight drop in some search
rankings when you make the switch as it can take Google some time to factor
the 301s into it's algorithm, but remember not to panic - if you see any drops
(big 'if'), it should only be temporary and I'd imagine you'd be back to
normal within 2-3 weeks.

Ideally though, you'd just configure Rails to use the trailing slash instead
so you didn't have to risk a temporary drop. If it's too much of an issue or
would be a hassle to do though, don't worry too much - you'll be fine.

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AznHisoka
With a 301 redirect, they are treated the same.

That said, I recommend having a canonical URL with 1 consistent format in the
meta tags just in case.

