Internal Links - Does the "www" matter?

[TravG]

When linking internally, what is the best way to link to pages? I have always just omitted the domain name and just used a slash, for example if the page is www.abc.com/123/ I would just use /123/ to link to that page. I notice on many websites they use the entire address and so does WordPress so I am wondering if it makes a difference.

For the above example is http://www.abc.com/123/ better than /123/? I would think it wouldn't make a difference but you never know.

Thoughts?

[TheGooner]

It doesn't make much of a difference.

If you are planning on reusing templates or pages on other sites then perhaps you might want to leave out the domain name so that you don't have to change the linked URLs - but that's a simple text edit - and normally you wouldn't want to reuse content without some edits.

Over the last year though, I have moved towards fully specifying all internal links in full in order to make it clearer to SE bots - and to make it harder for scrapers to lift the code - they have to do some edits as well.

[oldman]

personally i try to always link exactly what google shows in serps...

but basically what gooner said, doesn't really matter prob.

[12OddsCompare]

i would always link with full url - for text links may not that important, but for ie photos a good way...May someone scrapping your text or photo, so with relative linking they will be able to copy easily. When you use absolute links you may gain a link from being used...

[Christiaan]

I always use relative links. It is easier if you want to edit your url or anything. For example I changed from http to https. If it were all full link I would have had a lot of work to change every single link to https.

For SEO reasons I don't think it makes any difference.

[12OddsCompare]

You could use the base url as a variable, then you wouldn't have any problems to change something quickly.. Just found an nice article from Yoast ( the Wordpress SEO Developer --> Why relative URLs should be forbidden for web developers...--> yoast.com/relative-urls-issues/

[marise]

I don't think it will make a difference. There would be no need to type the whole url, nor does it have any benefits if you ask me.

[TheGooner]

I don't think it will make a difference. There would be no need to type the whole url, nor does it have any benefits if you ask me.

You say .... until your whole website is bot scraped and hosted somewhere else because it's easy to rip it off.

[sara jain]

Thank you useful thread really ! i like this !

[aksana]

I use full urls, but now I have moved one site to a new domain and I have to change all internal urls to relative. But really I prefer to use the full urls

[Rostick]

Theoretically it doesn`t make much of a difference for google, but I would specify the whole URL just so I can sleep well at night. One thing I can tell you, it is wise to use the same style. If you choose to do /123/, stick to that for all your internal links.

[Top Online Casinos]

I agree with Rostick. It does not really matter, as long as you stay consistent. Personally, I always use full url's. I have gotten used to it.