Suggestions as to format of new friendly URL's

and a trailing slash/no trailing slash question

[StaceyJ]

I'm going to rewrite my URL's to SE/user friendly ones after the holidays but am starting to plan now. I'd appreciate input as to how to handle this.

The entire shop sells widgets with a typical URL as such:

www.example.com/cgi-bin/shope/blue-widgets.cgi/round-blue-widgets/round-blue-widget-product1

Where blue-widgets.cgi is a category page listing all blue widgets, but after that it's also a directory for a sub-category page containing round blue widgets.

Problem here is Google currently has several of the .cgi URL's listed twice, as:

www.example.com/cgi-bin/shope/blue-widgets.cgi (no trailing slash)

AND

www.example.com/cgi-bin/shope/blue-widgets.cgi/ (with trailing slash)

I was originally going to redirect one to the other, but from the replies I got I decided not to at the moment and just rewrite everything to the new URL's I've been planning.

I need the format of Home/Main Category/Sub-Category/Product Pages, so I'm thinking the best format would be:

www.example.com/blue-widgets/round-blue-widgets/round-blue-widget-product1.htm

Question is, how should I handle things like

www.example.com/blue-widgets/round-blue-widgets/

where blue-widgets/ and round-blue-widgets/ can be either a page or a directory? Do I use a trailing slash or not? I want to avoid any further duplicate content issues that I probably already have.

[jdMorgan]

Question is, how should I handle things like

www.example.com/blue-widgets/round-blue-widgets/

where blue-widgets/ and round-blue-widgets/ can be either a page or a directory?

Are you saying that in some cases, "round-blue-widgets/" might be a page, and in others, you want the server to produce a directory listing of a directory called "round-blue-widgets/" or to serve the index page in that directory, such as "round-blue-widgets/index.html"?

To be 'correct' according to the HTTP 'rules,' a trailing slash indicates a directory -- which may or may not have an index file in it. If there is an index file, then it will be served when that directory is requested. If there is no index file, then the server will generate a listing of all files in that directory if "Options +Indexes" is set, or it will produce a 403-Forbidden error response if "Options -Indexes" is set.

If there is no trailing slash, the URL refers to a 'page' or a 'file.'

You can use characters, strings, character-types, number of directory-levels in the URL (count slashes), presence or absence of trailing slashes, or any number of other things to differentiate between products or categories and to differentiate between URLs that should be rewritten to your script and those that should not. And don't be afraid of being explicit -- using "cat" and "prod" in the URL itself, for example.

The trick is to pick a good, consistent, expandable, and maintainable URL "system," and to stick with it.

Jim

[g1smd]

A Rewrite does not rewrite one URL to a new URL.

It takes a URL request and translates that into an internal filepath to fetch the data from.

[StaceyJ]

A Rewrite does not rewrite one URL to a new URL.

I'm sorry, I understand that. I guess I worded my post wrongly. What I meant is I'm going to create new URL's and use rewrites to my existing file structure.

Are you saying that in some cases, "round-blue-widgets/" might be a page, and in others, you want the server to produce a directory listing of a directory called "round-blue-widgets/" or to serve the index page in that directory, such as "round-blue-widgets/index.html"?

Not really, I didn't word that very well either. :( The first part is correct, it can be a page, but it should never display a directory. I shouldn't have used the word "directory".

round-blue-widgets by itself can be a category page or it can have product pages under it like round-blue-widgets/round-blue-widget-product1.htm
round-blue-widgets/round-blue-widget-product2.htm
etc.

To be 'correct' according to the HTTP 'rules,' a trailing slash indicates a directory -- which may or may not have an index file in it. If there is an index file, then it will be served when that directory is requested. If there is no index file, then the server will generate a listing of all files in that directory if "Options +Indexes" is set, or it will produce a 403-Forbidden error response if "Options -Indexes" is set.

If there is no trailing slash, the URL refers to a 'page' or a 'file.'

I understand that, also. :) That is the main reason I brought this up. The way the script handles it all can be confusing, which is what I want to fix and hopefully have Google fix in the way it has the site indexed.