Comments on: SEO & Internal Interlinking: Relative vs Absolute URLs

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 04:36:14 +0000

This article’s comments actually helped me decide whether or not to continue using absolute URL’s. As a developer, I’m thinking about page load time. On the other hand, for RSS feeds, HTTPS, and those dumb site thieves, “absolute URL’s” are definitely better. Thanks for the article!

By: Mike Behnken

Mike Behnken — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:14:46 +0000

In these days where content scraping is so prevelent, I chose to use absolute URLs so when a scraper takes an article with haste the links will still point back to my site.

By: John Doherty

John Doherty — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:36:06 +0000

I am a web developer and have tried both approaches over multiple projects. I prefer relative URL’s and set the base tag in the page header, easier to work with and it keeps the page weight down.

I agree with Ann, Google’s bot is smart enough to resolve the URL and treats both Relative and Absolute URLs the same.

Its more about usability that SEO. All content on the web should be optimised for download speed and Absolute URLs add nothing but unnecessary bloat to your mark-up. Apparently, Google will use page speed as ranking factor in 2010 http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/11/13/google-page-speed-may-be-a-ranking-factor-in-2010 so this should also be considered.

Regarding HTTPS, if your not using it do a 301 redirect to HTTP just to keep things clean.

By: Mohammed Rhalmi

Mohammed Rhalmi — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:27:01 +0000

I’ve used absolute links for some links (php variables, images ….) recently and I ve seen my traffic rank falling. Is it due to this change? Does google interpret internal absolute links as some sort of attempt to trick the engine? Or may be my traffic rank is just falling for other reasons?

By: Pushpendra

Pushpendra — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:25:14 +0000

Absolute links are always better choice for SEO Point of View,check out the article written by one of member of webmasters team of bing for SEO Purpose.

http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/webmaster/archive/2009/07/01/making-links-work-for-you-sem-101.aspx

I hope it should put an end to discussion for bing search.Regarding google and yahoo search we are still in dark.

By: stacey huxley

stacey huxley — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:12:46 +0000

I doubt there is any difference. In our experience there has been no proof to make us believe any additional ranking performance for one over the other.

The quality of content, well structured site and decent inbound links with relevant content seem to be more important.

It does not seem to hurt having your targetted keywords in the url either. But this is certainly by no means a killer SEO move. ;)

By: Peak Web Marketing

Peak Web Marketing — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:17:51 +0000

I voted for absolute URL, but considering the usability and download time, I would use the absolute URL link for logo images.

By: Drupal websites

Drupal websites — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:54:00 +0000

I use Drupal for building websites. The SEO adviser of a client advised to go for absolute URL’s if posible, but could not explain it other than “just to be sure”. Talkin about CMS’s, WYSIWYG editors and SSL secured pages, I can tell you implementing absolute URL’s can be very tricky and error prone if the CMS (Drupal in this case) is not ready for it.

By: Asif Anwar

Asif Anwar — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:05:08 +0000

Hi Ann,

I am also an Absolute supporter like Richrad. but, I have faced it twice and have been able to recover in one. And in both situation, the common thing I tried out was absolute URL. I need futher testing to diagnose what happened.

Asif.

By: Ann Smarty

Ann Smarty — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 08:28:05 +0000

@Asif, I really don’t think Google differentiates between absolute and relative internal URLs – that would be a serious bug. Per my experience, there’s no difference.