Relative links

[94501]

Hi,

How much of an SEO issue is it to have relative links vs. fully written out links, like http://www.seolinkquestion.com/my-silly-question ?

If I have a site that uses relative links, should I change them all?

Thanks...Mike

[scanlin]

From an SEO point of view it shouldn't make a difference. See http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-internal-interlinking-relative-vs-absolute-urls/7000/ and http://www.seo-theory.com/2008/05/28/are-absolute-links-better-than-relative-links-for-seo/ and http://www.webpronews.com/absolute-vs-relative-links-which-is-better-for-the-search-engines-2004-08

There are cases when absolute is better (RSS feeds, PDF documents, or even on your site so that if it is scraped the links might stay in tact), but personally I like relative URLs on my site. If I ever have to rename a sub-directory (not often, admittedly) things go smoother.

[94501]

Dear Mike,

Thanks! I wasn't looking forward to changing everything. Best...MEJ

[Tompt]

I would say that it depends on how content rich your site is going to be, if it's likely you're going to be the victim of scrapers use the absolute URLs. Most scrapers will of course try to remove any links you put in, but not all will and it's better for you if they refer back to the site where the content was originally appearing.

I'm going to have to give you a tenuous link here because I cannot find where I originally read it, but point 13 on this page (about an SEOmoz masterclass in bulgaria of all things):

http://koosjan.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/37-takeaways-from-seomoz-master-class-in-bulgaria-by-paris-childress/

Ah okay and in chapter 4 of the beginners guide:

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development

I've had scrapers recently start paying attention to one of my sites, and it's good to see the absolute links appearing in there. It's not going to pass over much juice or authority, but it will help avoid duplicate content issues.

Edit: And Mike already beat me to it.

[94501]

Thanks, Tom!

So, the site this issue is a few hundred pages of not very unique catalog content. Would you rewrite the relative links to absolute?

Best...Mike

[Tompt]

If that's the case I wouldn't worry about it, if things change and you start blogging maybe use it there but like you say it's not worth worrying about.

Tom