Add Trailing Slash to the End of the URL with .htaccess Rewrite Rules
For a website that has URLs that end with a slash (/), it’s a good practice to ensure that all url links been parsed by the web server ended with trailing slash, even if visitors forget to enter the ending slash. This avoid visitors been served with 404 Page Not Found or Page Cannot be Displayed error as some web servers treat links without trailing slash as a file name instead of directory, and thus unable to locate the documents. It also eliminates the possibility that both pages with same content, one with slash at the end and another without, been viewed by search engines as duplicate content.
As an example, all hits to http://www.mydigitallife.info/contact should be redirect to http://www.mydigitallife.info/contact/.
Most web server, including the popular Apache HTTPD web server supports mod_rewrite module where rules can be set in .htaccess file in order to redirect to add trailing slash to the URLs that does not already have one.
The following code can be put in .htaccess to redirect URL without trailing slash to URL with trailing slash:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301]
or
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[^./]+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.co.uk/$1/ [R=301,L]
or
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\..+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mydigitallife.info/$1/ [R=301,L]
or
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)/$ /$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([a-zA-Z0-9]+)
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ /%1/? [R=301,L]
In you’re using CMS or blog such as WordPress that allows custom URL structure for permalinks, especially for search engine optimization (SEO), the above code should come before the block of rewrite conditions and rules for URL customization for the CMS or blog platform.
Brief explaination of the rewrite code to add trailing slash to URL
RewriteEngine On – This line enables the runtime rewriting engine based on mod_rewrite module of Apache.
RewriteBase / – This line sets the current page root directory as base URL for per-directory rewrites.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f – This line excludes all URLs pointing to existed files from been added with trailing slash again. Directories cannot be excluded as this would exclude the rewrite behavior for existing directories.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !index.php – This line is optional, and will excludes a sample URL (in this case, index.php) that users do not want it to be rewritten. Remove this line if not necessary.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\..+$ and RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[^./]+$ – Specify that the URL does not contain any . (dot) to exclude reference to file.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$ and RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$ – This line determines which URL doesn’t contain a trailing slash
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1/ [L,R=301] – This line process URL without trailing slash that has passed conditions set above, by appending a trailing slash and then redirect with 301 or permanent redirect status to the new URL. L mean this is the last line to process and the rewrite process can be terminated. Remember to replace the www.domain.com with your own domain name.
Brief explaination for final set of rewrite rules and rule conditions
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)/$ /$1 [L] – This line terminates the trailing slash appending rewrite process if the URL already contains trailing slash.
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([a-zA-Z0-9]+) – This line determines request that does not ends with trailing slash.
RewriteRule ^([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ /%1/? [R=301,L] – This line append a slash to the end of URI and perform a 301 permanent redirect to the new URL with trailing slash, and terminate the rewrite block.
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Thank you for the article. I only got the last code example to work on a Sliverstripe CMS system that I am managing.
The CMS does not redirect the non slash urls, so I am glad that I found one of the examples to work.
Thanks again!
….Mikael
Hi I have a question I use the code above ant it works perfect accept one case.
For links domain.com/prices#winter-offer redirects to domain.com/prices/#winter-offer. Is it possible to add / after winter-offer not after prices/
This will break urls for files that do not contain a dot and will not work for folders that do conatin a dot in their name.
But besides of that it is the Best solution I can think of.
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Tank you.
sadly, these techniques will destroy post arrays.
Thank you for solution. Example is usesful for me:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !..+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mydigitallife.info/$1/ [R=301,L]
You're a legend.
The only website I found that explained this clearly and coherently.
Thanks.
Thanx. Worked perfectly for me. Even wordpress uses the same code in .htaccess.
Couldn't get the second option to work for me either. Getting a 500 error.
I'd been using that slash alot on one of my website. Most of them had been indexed by search engine successfully, but four of them return a 404 not found error based on Google Webmaster report, weird.
I have tried both methods and they do work but not with the other statement that I have. I was wondering exactly what Killswitch meant when he says "play with it a bit." I tried rearranging the order and that doesn't seem to help, I'm looking for a quick solution here.
This was extremely helpful, I have been trying for the longest time to figure out how to end a site.com/somthing to site.com/something/ with no luck. Had to play with it a bit due to the rules I already have, but had it working in about 5 mins.
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