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Official statement

Google treats URLs with a trailing slash (/) and without a trailing slash as two distinct URLs and indexes them separately. It is crucial to consistently use the same variant across all internal links, sitemaps, and canonicals to concentrate signals on a single version.
🎥 Source video

Extracted from a Google Search Central video

💬 EN 📅 20/08/2021 ✂ 14 statements
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  4. How can you prevent soft 404 errors from 'no results' pages?
  5. Is it true that Google's recent soft 404 adjustments could change your technical SEO game?
  6. Is it necessary to change domains after removing a large amount of content?
  7. Why does Google Images struggle with multilingual content?
  8. Should you be worried about multilingual text in SEO?
  9. What could be causing your new pages to take so long to get indexed?
  10. Why Doesn't Google Index All of Your Pages?
  11. Why does Google enforce strict rules on geo-blocking and crawling?
  12. Why doesn't Google diminish the power of generic keywords across all pages?
  13. How can you optimize your crawl budget for expired auction pages?
📅
Official statement from (4 years ago)
TL;DR

Google views URLs with and without a trailing slash as distinct entities. Ensure absolute consistency in your internal links, sitemaps, and canonicals to consolidate your SEO signals on a single version.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Doit-on choisir une variante avec ou sans slash ?
Il importe peu, tant que vous restez cohérent sur l'ensemble de votre site.
Quels outils peuvent aider à assurer la cohérence d'URL ?
Les crawlers web comme Screaming Frog peuvent identifier des inconsistances dans vos formats d'URL.
Cela affecte-t-il le SEO local ?
Indirectement, car des incohérences peuvent impacter votre visibilité globale et diluer vos signaux locaux.
🏷 Related Topics
Crawl & Indexing AI & SEO Links & Backlinks Domain Name Search Console

🎥 From the same video 13

Other SEO insights extracted from this same Google Search Central video · published on 20/08/2021

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