Should I include a trailing slash for my <xhtml:link rel="alternate" href="URL" hreflang="en-US"/> 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, Commented May 11, 2020 at 8:35
On the URL. Both on <loc>URL</loc> and on <xhtml:link href="URL" ... />. — cbdeveloper, Commented May 11, 2020 at 8:38
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, Commented May 11, 2020 at 9:23
Yes. Both cases. Home and also subfolders. Would like to know if it makes any difference having the trailing slash or not. — cbdeveloper, Commented May 11, 2020 at 9:26
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, Commented May 11, 2020 at 9:37

Rob · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-11 11:49:03Z

1

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.

answered May 11, 2020 at 11:49

Rob

4,6392 gold badges21 silver badges25 bronze badges

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1