Canonical URL question

[HelsBells]

We have used a couple of SEO's across a number of years. We are dabbling a little in-house before we look to outsource again. While I understand the basics of canonical URL's, I am confused by something and would appreciate advice please.

Someone has added a canonical URL on the home page of our website. The URL in the canonical tag is our home page URL but with a forward slash at the end.

If I paste the URL with the forward slash into a browser, it redirects to the home page URL without the forward slash.

I'm thinking there shouldn't be a canonical URL on the home page at all? Is this correct please? TIA

 

[Community]

It shouldnt matter, you'll find many SEO Plugins add the homepage with a forward slash which then redirects to the root domain. It should however be left in place to ensure that there is no confusion with non-www or www URL's and https / http redirects/canonicals.

It serves more purpose than any possible negatives in my opinion.

 

[Paro]

A canonical URL is the URL of the page that Google thinks is most representative from a set of duplicate pages on your site. For example, if you have URLs for the same page (for example: example.com?dress=1234 andexample.com/dresses/1234), Google chooses one as canonical.