Should I include a trailing slash for my URLs?

Question

I'm implementing hreflang on my web app.

But they use it (trailing slashes) on their own Sitemap.

Does it make any difference at all?

Are you asking about the trailing slash on the URL or on the link tag? — Stephen Ostermiller, May 11 '20 at 08:35
On the URL. Both on <loc>URL</loc> and on <xhtml:link href="URL" ... />. — cbdeveloper, May 11 '20 at 08:38
So <loc>http://example.com/</loc> vs <loc>http://example.com/</loc> and <xhtml:link href="http://example.com/" ... /> vs <xhtml:link href="http://example.com" ... />? Are you asking only about your home page or about deep links as well. Do you need advice about http://example.com/page vs http://example.com/page/? — Stephen Ostermiller, May 11 '20 at 09:23
Yes. Both cases. Home and also subfolders. Would like to know if it makes any difference having the trailing slash or not. — cbdeveloper, May 11 '20 at 09:26
For general advice about trailing slashes see What is the difference between a homepage link with or without a trailing slash? and Does it make a difference if your URL path ends in a trailing slash or not?. An answer here could give you direction about how to choose what to put in your sitemap. — Stephen Ostermiller, May 11 '20 at 09:37

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 11 '20 at 11:49

XML, which XHTML is, requires self-closing tags to have a closing slash.

In a URI, a trailing slash indicates a directory resource.

In a URI, no trailing slash indicates a resource; such as a file.

On a top level domain, such as https://example.net/, browsers will drop the closing slash but I can't think of the details at the moment.

1 Answers1