I got a question today regarding whether it makes a difference in the Search Engines if the URL’s to internal pages are relative or absolute. Back to the basics, with the age old question of Absolute vs Relative URL’s.
What is an Absolute url? What is a Relative URL? Absolute URL’s are written out fully. Relative URL’s are appreviated by only showing what is after the .com. Such as: /contact.html. The relative URL is just showing the filepath.
Does it matter for SEO purposes whether or not you use Absolute vs. Relative URL’s?
In my opinion, I don’t believe it matters. In situations, where your site is having a tough time getting pages indexed, and has a lot of sloppy code, it might be worth considering. As a matter of fact, I might go so far as to say it is a bestpractice to use Absolute URL’s. But, before attributing lack of pages indexed to your relative url’s, do an analysis of other criteria that affect your SEO performance.
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I concurr. If your website is not getting indexed by the aforementioned search engines it more likely has to do with poor web design rather than Absolute vs. Relative URLs. All my sites are done using a combo of absolute and relative urls and most if not all my pages are indexed the same, if that helps at all.
I think there is probably no difference in using absolute vs. relative URLs in page links.
I think, “Why would Google program their crawler or search algorithm to differentiate relative vs. absolute URLs?” I figure there are two reasons they might: (1) It technically makes their algorithms faster, easier to manage, or easier to code. Or (2) It helps the algorithm provide better results.
Neither (1) nor (2) above makes any sense.
RE (1): From what I understand, the Google algorithms don’t treat a page on the same domain much different than a page on another domain. And if they did, I don’t think you could full them by writing out the entire URL. Also, if I was coding a search engine (though I’m not nearly as smart as the collective Google), I would only work with full path URLs… any link I ran across as relative, I would immediately convert to an absolute URL (like the status bar in your browser). Then you can do the apples-to-apples comparisons that make a search engine work.
RE (2): What significance does a relative URL have vs. an absolute URL? Which is better and why? I couldn’t think of anything here.
Mike,
Never come across this before and can’t see how it would ever have a justification from a SE viewpoint. Would be good if someone could come up with an example of it having an impact. Until then others SEO issues will be priority
I concur. I’ve never found an instance where I saw an increase/decrease to a sites rankings based on our use of relative vs. absolute urls.
I agree 100% but there is another side benefit of absolute links. THats full paths urls are better as Googlebot is known to not always resolve local urls.