Web developers and SEO professionals often debate the importance of a trailing slash at the end of a URL link. Some people not so familiar with link building and search engine optimization dismiss their importance, saying it doesn’t really matter if you include the slash or not.
But the truth is it does matter – if you do business with a web developer or SEO firm who dismisses the importance of including a “/” at the end of a website they’re linking to, find a new one immediately.
SEO blogger Sebastien explained it in pretty simple terms…URLs are like phone numbers in that each character matters. If you take a digit off the end of a phone number, you don’t go anywhere. The slash at the end of a URL shares much the same characteristics. If someone gives you a web address to link on your website, use it as is or not at all.
Make sure you and the other webmaster agree on a format for the URL and stick with it.
Servers have different ways of handling issues like this. Say for instance the link on your site doesn’t contain the trailing slash but the other site does, several things can happen that will negate any link building benefits you’re trying to get. Some do a re-direct while others will simply display an error (404) message.
Some servers may even return a 200 response for both versions of the URL. Not only does this mean wasted time and effort from a link building perspective, you could potentially run into duplicate content problems as well.
Read this Search Engine Journal post for more information.