Links - Whole URL or No?

[TravG]

Is there any advantage to using the whole URL of the internal webpage you are linking to? I have always omitted the domain when linking to other pages within my site but I have been noticing more sites using the entire URL. Just curious what you think is the best way, with or without the whole URL

exhttp://www.abc.com/reviews/
or
ex. /reviews/

Like i say I have always use the second example omitting the actual domain.

Thanks

[TheGooner]

I was like you - but now spell it out to avoid any confusion with google and their www vs non-www bollocks.
(How a 21st century search engine can think these are two separate domains is beyond me)


I've also notice yahoo bots (and others) getting stuck sometimes in my error logs, somehow referencing incorrect URLs, and so I a attempting to sort that out by fully qualifying everything. Whether it works or matters? How can tell?

Google would rather spend decades waffling about Panda, Penguin and Panther ... than actually categorising a useful index ...


Opps .. end rant!

[Sherlock]

Is there any advantage to using the whole URL of the internal webpage you are linking to? I have always omitted the domain when linking to other pages within my site but I have been noticing more sites using the entire URL. Just curious what you think is the best way, with or without the whole URL

exhttp://www.abc.com/reviews/
or
ex. /reviews/

Like i say I have always use the second example omitting the actual domain.

Thanks

no advantage
big disadvantage is the whole url linking, if you will even move the page to other domain, subdomain etc.

[sweetbet]

I prefer not to include the whole url in the linking code. This way, I can check that my site and menu links are working before I upload them into the server.

[jpettersson]

@ UltimatePokerBonus - from SEO POV it doesn't matter if your internal links are with relative or absolute path.
@ TheGooner

(How a 21st century search engine can think these are two separate domains is beyond me)

because www. is like a sub-domain and you can serve different content on http:// domain .com then on http:// www. domain .com

[Gamer]

I just use simply link structure, like: /casino.html and it works perfectly.
No need for any domain names to include. In fact, it's even better, as there is less html code on your pages.

[TheGooner]

JPetterson - no it's not. www is a special case for leading subdomain and points to the main domain.

Show me an example of a website of any standing ANYWHERE that has www.domain.com as different content to domain.com.

It just does not happen - and a company which claims to be leading edge SE should be able to handle it without requiring webmasters to play tricks with canonisation, preferred domain addresses et, al in order to get this defaulting correctly.

[Christiaan]

I always use the relative path without the domain. If you ever change your domain it will be much easier.

Even if you only change from http to https you already have a problem. If it is correct that Google will make security more important for ranking this is something you might do in the future (or already did).

[Sherlock]

JPetterson - no it's not. www is a special case for leading subdomain and points to the main domain.

Show me an example of a website of any standing ANYWHERE that has www.domain.com as different content to domain.com.

It just does not happen - and a company which claims to be leading edge SE should be able to handle it without requiring webmasters to play tricks with canonisation, preferred domain addresses et, al in order to get this defaulting correctly.

I have seen the difference few times, and much more times I have seen working only www or nonwww version which is really stupid mistake, especially when only www version is working. Which is a relict from ancient times, when in old browsers the www had to be written I think (not completely sure). Many websites from 90's have such error. Usually the nonwww verison is parked by registrar (who is making money on poor visitors) and www is working.

On the other side if you make a duplicate content, search engines will probably index just the page with higher trustrank. I can imagine listing it twice if there is a lot of dynamic content, however it is not big win, because the wedged trustrank is no win at all.

I remember once my programer made a mistake a created www.www.mydomain.com with duplicate content and it ranked on lower positions as mydomain.com.

[Erogenous]

Google likes as little code as possible when their bots are scrolling through your webpages which is why I just use the page URL like online-casinos.php instead of adding http://www.mysite.com/online-casinos.php

[pinkytoe]

I like to use the full url as it can help when someone scrapes or copies all your content.

I dont think its a huge issues either way, but I find full url alot easier for search and replace type stuff too.

[universal4]

I like to use the full url instead of relative links also.

This way the same navigation structure works on pages in sub-folders as well as the root. When using relative urls in this scenario, the nav structure MUST change (in most cases adding the .. [dot dot] ) in order for it to be correct.

Rick
Universal4

[onlinepokerplay]

I think there is no diference for full url or just a page

[wettFORM.AT]

I also use the complete URL but I don´t think that the short option brings different results.

[muffincrumbs]

Way down the road protocols could change from hypertext to Muffintext transfer and you will be re writing every URL on your site!

I use the shorten version because if the site ever has to move to a new domain or start using SSL making it https it is way easier. Also, as others have said, it decreases the overhead slightly.

[TravG]

So here is another question about linking. When you are linking externally to your website, do you use a slash or no slash? I use to always use a slash but in my browser the url is displayed without a slash so I'm rethinking that now. ex. x.www.domainname.com/ or x.www.domainname.com

I wish I could stop worrying about these petty little things but.......

[universal4]

The slash is assumed anyway.
Here is what stackoverflow says about it
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2...-a-domain-name

It is handled slightly different when it is a page or folder after the domain.

Rick
Universal4

[DanHorvat]

I'm using a slash whenever the URL doesn't end in a file extension. Because that's the right way to do it. We can also stop putting dots at the end of sentences

You don't use a full URL in code. The general principle is to be flexible and to use shortcuts and clever solutions whenever possible. Although, pinkytoe's scraping argument is a really good one. But Christiaan's http/https argument beats that one and ends the discussion in the relative URL's favor.

There are no SEO advantages either way.