Summary:
These two urls are returning server response 200 OK, and are therefore considered TWO distinct separate pages:
mydomain/cscartstore/some-category/<br />
mydomain/cscartstore/some-category<br />
```<br />
Both are obviously resolving to the same category page in my cart, but this is causing:<br />
<br />
[indent]1 - Google to warn me of duplicate content in GWT, and <br />
2 - splitting of page rank, PR, and links between these 2 urls, making each less relevant.<br />
3 - traffic in GA is also split, clearly indicating Google is treating these urls as distinct.[/indent]<br />
To avoid both page dilution, and potentially severe content duplication penalties, I am trying to enforce the use of the trailing slash for all directories throughout my site, and this is[b]<br />
what I've done so far:[/b]<br />
<br />
Elsewhere in my site (besides the store directory), I've resolved this issue easily with the following htaccess redirect<br />
<br />
```php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d<br />
RewriteRule ^(.*[^/])$ /$1/ [L,R=301]
```<br />
that I've added to my root htaccess, and also to the htacess files in each directory (if a directory has one). As a result, if someone types in <br />
<br />
[indent]mydomain/somedir[/indent]<br />
in their browser, then the url is automatically changed to <br />
<br />
[indent]mydomain/somedir[b]/[/b] ([i]with[/i] the slash), [/indent]<br />
as the page is redirected. And I get these server responses:<br />
<br />
```php
mydomain/somedir ==> 301 redirected to mydomain/somedir/<br />
mydomain/somedir/ ==> 200 OK
```<br />
which are exactly the right responses I should get. So my site in general is in great shape and not having duplicate content issues, <br />
[b]<br />
EXCEPT[/b] <br />
<br />
for the cart categories, that don't seem to obey the htaccess above that works perfectly elsewhere.<br />
<br />
I've been pulling my hair looking for a solution to this, and would appreciate any advice please. <br />
<br />
More details: <br />
<br />
a) - as you see above, I have the store in a directory, not at the root of my site. At the same level of the store I have other directories, all obeying the htaccess directive and not creating any duplicate issue. Examples:<br />
<br />
```php
mydomain/anydir/subdir1 redirects to: mydomain/anydir/subdir1/<br />
mydomain/another-dir/subdir2 redirects to: mydomain/another-dir/subdir2/<br />
mydomayn/yetanotherdir/subdir3/subsubdir redirects to: mydomay/yetanotherdir/subdir3/subsubdir/<br />
mydomain/cscartstore redirects to: mydomain/cscartstore/ ( ==> up to here the htaccess redirect works fine)<br />
mydomain/cscartstore/a-category DOES NOT redirect at all and shows the "A Category" page under url without trailing slash<br />
```<br />
<br />
b ) - I am using the SEO addon, and in it I've chosen to display categories as /category/ That is working fine from links within the cart, so for instance if I go to the menu and select a category, it will show correctly with the "/" as in <br />
<br />
[indent]mydomain/cscartstore/example-category/ [/indent]<br />
c) - HOWEVER, if someone links to this category from their own site [i][u]and[/u][/i] forgets the trailing slash (which is not only common, but beyond my control in many cases), as in <br />
<br />
[indent]mydomain/cscartstore/example-category [/indent]<br />
then Google will eventually crawl that link back to my store and index this url [i]without[/i] the trailing slash, failing to identify it with the one having the trailing slash. And that's the source of my content duplication issues. So even though I am being consistent in my internal links, sitemap, etc, this issue still appears and I need to address it. <br />
<br />
d) - Besides the htaccess redirect (which is not working for CS-Cat categories only), another solution is to use a canonical tag in the "head" section of every single category page, redirecting the "non-/" to the "/" url version. There are 3 issues with this solution:<br />
<br />
[indent]1 - Google does not necessarily follows (respect) canonical tags as they would a htaccess 301 redirect <br />
<br />
2 - Google may not notice the "/" at the end of the canonical url (web reports are conflicting on this) and therefore not see the difference in this one particular redirecting circumstance, although separating "non-/" from the "/" urls for other purposes - such as when indexing, for example. (and yes, Google is not consistent in their approach of this situation, as even they admit).<br />
<br />
3 - This canonical redirect would need to be done automatically, by adding code in the head section of the page-creating template, such as this:<br />
<br />
```php
<link rel="canonical" href="{page_url}">
```<br />
that would become, in the html page created for a category named (let's say) "A Category":<br />
<br />
```php
<link rel="canonical" href="http://mydomain.com/cscartstore/a-category/">
```<br />
<br />
So if you do know how to implement this, and would like to contribute information or code, then your contribution will be highly appreciated by me and others in this circumstance and I thank you in advance.[/indent] <img src="upload://yGrKuhdxbbf2nIFvV2XDJuEFQb7.gif" class="bbc_emoticon" alt=":)">
