Which internal linking structure is best?

[glenng]

For some this question might be basic or others it could be a good learning exercise - or maybe create some controversy.

When creating an internal link between pages which format is best for having the bots or spyders pick up the pages for indexing and for passing PR among the pages within a site?

1) a href=http://www.mydomain.com/blahblah.htm
or
2) a href=blahblah.htm

How many of you are falling off your chairs in laughter? LOL

[sarahk]

Hi Glenn

My understanding is that it's best not to use the http but there will be exceptions.

Never use ../../ type notation, confuses the browsers and the bots.

Use / at the beginning and give the full path. This makes it easier for everyone and if your site is modular it allows you to easily pull in different sections and know that all the links will work without modification, regardless of where you've called it from.

Does that make sense? Just in case... If you have a script called from http://www.mysite.com/info/stuff.html and it has a link to more.html it should be written

< a href='/info/more.html' title='find out more'>Find out more< /a>

rather than

< a href='more.html' title='find out more'>Find out more< /a>

although both will work for the human visitor.

[ResaleBroker]

What exceptions are you talking about?

[glenng]

Hi Sarah,

Thank you for your answer and for the down to earth explanation and example.

Hi Glenn

My understanding is that it's best not to use the http but there will be exceptions.

Never use ../../ type notation, confuses the browsers and the bots.

Use / at the beginning and give the full path. This makes it easier for everyone and if your site is modular it allows you to easily pull in different sections and know that all the links will work without modification, regardless of where you've called it from.

Does that make sense? Just in case... If you have a script called from http://www.mysite.com/info/stuff.html and it has a link to more.html it should be written

< a href='/info/more.html' title='find out more'>Find out more< /a>

rather than

< a href='more.html' title='find out more'>Find out more< /a>

although both will work for the human visitor.

[webmaster]

An exception would be linking to your index page, you should consolidate http://www.seo-guy.com and index.html because Google sees http://www.seo-guy.com/index.html as a different URL for PR purposes, thus your internal links and outbound links dont match if you use the reletive URL path.

Click on the banner for REW up top left and it will take you to http://www.realestatewebmasters.com not http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/index.php

[ResaleBroker]

WHAT?

I have to go. I have some links to change!

[chachi]

Has anyone actually seen proof that a relative url is more SE friendly than a full url? I always thought using a fully qulaified url was "safer".

[webmaster]

relative is more SE frienly as it requires less code and is the same call, thus filesize as well as incidental code is reduced.

There is really no proof necessary, change all your URL's to Full or vice versa and compare file sizes. Your site will load faster with reletive and its a FACT that the less code the better for SE's

[chachi]

so what is your feeling on using CSS for layout rather than tables? Do you think there are still too many browser incompatabilites or is it time to make the switch 100%?

[webmaster]

Other then IE and Mozilla there really arent any browsers I care about as far as compatibility go, shoot if I increase my traffic by 50% and lose 1% because people think my site looks funny in netscape I'll take those odds!

Im testing some CSS stuff as we speak actually and will be happy to publish all findings.