Comments on: 2 Minute SEO Tip – Absolute vs. Relative Links

By: sudheer

sudheer — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:48:56 +0000

Absolute links are better in my opinion and you could say yeh but what happens moving from dev to test servers with different base domains… however if you use a content mgt system then this can be managed quite easily.

By: sudheer

sudheer — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:46:18 +0000

You will write more time your domain name (considering it makes certainly part of your SEO strategy), I totally agree with what you said: Absolute path is the way to do it.We can’t deny the fact that in-links contribute to page ranking.
So, the solution is simple. You just have to use both of them, wherever necessary.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:46:38 +0000

My dedicated server host told me my server halted yeserday due to too many internal full URL links on the home page. The problem was “too many connections.” I was using the full path to bring up about 20 clickable thumbnail images which brought people to internal articles. He said that each of these created a new instance, or new connection. He said that relative path links did not create this problem.

The crash happened twice, and after I changed the links, it was fine.

Anyone here ever hear of anything like this?

By: Michael Hoskins

Michael Hoskins — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:04:06 +0000

@Jack – A configuration file? Meaning for every link you’d need server-side code prefacing every link to fill in the domain? No thanks.

@Golgotha – And Google (well, Matt Cutts) has already stated that for some sites that do scrape, getting links from them will result in a penalty.

I also disagree that file size is a “null point.” If all you’re after is rankings, usability be damned, then go right ahead. The rest of us have to balance many factors, file size being a small factor, but development server URLs are the main benefit of relative URLs.

@Adi – Recall that Matt Cutts does not speak from an SEO-only perspective. He, as with all engineers at Google, is focused on making the web more usable for humans, not for SEOs.

By: Absolute vs relative URl interlinking: Which one is better for Search Engine Optimization? | SeoblogR

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:35:21 +0000

[...] this one is a tough question. There is numerous number of posts concerning this subject. I decided to put all that together in a single [...]

By: Link Building Bible

Link Building Bible — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:05:11 +0000

Wow…. I never thought of it with regards to scraping, but this is awesome! I will be writing about this very soon on my blog in my internal link building series.

By: Chris Shepherd

Chris Shepherd — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:23:56 +0000

If the end product in the HTML is an absolute link, then that’s the best for me, even if what’s stored in the CMS is a relative link making it best practice.

By: Wil

Wil — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:50:37 +0000

The only pain with absolute links, which I do prefer for too many reasons to list (and only a few for “not”) is when your internal or external engine points you to the “www” path (or not) and when you get your search results you get relative links.

If your absolute links take you from there to a “www” path (or not) and you have login credentials on that folder, you’ll be prompted for login credentials everytime you go from “www” to just “http” and vice versa, so there’s the chance for one addtl. login prompt along an absolute path where htaccess exists in the folder….

By: Web Design Media

Web Design Media — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:13:18 +0000

There’s no point in saving a few bytes when using relative links…except if each page of your website contains thousands of links. However, as @Dustin says, relative links is a good practice.
We can’t deny the fact that in-links contribute to page ranking.
So, the solution is simple. You just have to use both of them, wherever necessary.

By: URLs and SEO and Internet Marketing

URLs and SEO and Internet Marketing — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:38:48 +0000

[...] Absolute vs. Relative Links – Which is Better? (Search-This) — “Well you’ll get different responses depending on who you ask. Many people will tell you that relative paths are better but I’m not one of them! I always recommend absolute paths and here’s why…” [...]

By: Ahmet

Ahmet — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:20:23 +0000

One more reason to enter absolute path:
You will write more time your domain name (considering it makes certainly part of your SEO strategy), I totally agree with what you said: Absolute path is the way to do it

By: Adi

Adi — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:54:44 +0000

Well recently it was revealed that “GoogleGuy” is none other than Matt Cutts.
Hence, obviously what he has said, is definitely correct.

By: Golgotha

Golgotha — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:39:53 +0000

@Dustin – “Trying to make your site get in-links from scrapers is a null point and ridiculous.”

Not when your site is scrapped by a dozen sites like this one is…

“You want to use relative paths as much as possible, they are not only going to take the file size of your site down”

file size, talk about a null point…

And Jack is dead on, you would just use a config file to change from development to production. It’s real simple. It’s what WordPress does, and it’s what you should do too.

So in the end relative pathing gains you nothing, save a few bytes.

By: Jack @ The Tech Teapot

Jack @ The Tech Teapot — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:21:21 +0000

@Dustin – using a config file is pretty easy to do with the correct domain to use on your live domain and your stage sub-domain.

By: Dustin Brewer

Dustin Brewer — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:39:34 +0000

I don’t agree with this at all for a lot of reasons. Trying to make your site get in-links from scrapers is a null point and ridiculous.

You want to use relative paths as much as possible, they are not only going to take the file size of your site down but when working from a development point of view it is mandatory to use relative links.

The biggest reasons for this is most developers use a “development subdomain” that you will be working on the project until it goes live. You don’t want to go back and change all of them to the new domain if you are using absolute.

Using relative paths is a just good practice (almost a standard) in web design.