Canonical on homepage - with a backslash, or without?

[Onders]

We're considering putting a canonical tag on our homepage for a couple of reasons:

- Will allow us to give partners unique addresses with tracking code

- Similarly with our sharing functionality when someone share our URL, the URL they share has some tracking behind it.

What I don't understand though is the difference between a homepage canonical with a backslash, and one without.

In the SERPS google puts down "www.widget.com/" but the actual homepages are all www.widget.com

A couple of really big SEO'ed sites have a canonical on the homepage with a backslash, but not sure why? Is it better for SEO?

I'm wondering whether the implementation should be dependent on the structure of both your internal and external links as well. If most of them go to widget.com/ then is that the best structure for the canonical as well?

Thanks in advance!

[deadsea]

/ is a forward slash, not a back slash.

I would include the forward slash. If you type in "http://example.com"', your browser issues a request for "/" on the server at "example.com", which is exactly what it does if you type in "http://example.com/". In fact, my browser (firefox) automatically adds the slash to the url bar if I type a domain without it.

[g1smd]

Your domain is "example.com".

You need to specify which page.

The root page is "/".

Link to "www.example.com/".

[Onders]

Thanks for the prompt response Much appreciated - I'll implement it with the forward slash.. not the backslash as I mistakenly called it!