Internal website links

[hinote]

We have been having a debate locally about the best way to internally link pages on our website.

Some say use the full url, ie, http://www.website.com/page.htm
Some say just use the page url, ie, page.htm

Does it really make any difference.?

[withoutwax]

Full url is better if you want to be sure where link factors are going (e.g. if you have domain.com and www.domain.com set up to point to your site).

Page url is easier if you change domains etc.

But there's not much difference. For me: if the site is static then page url. If the site is dynamic then full url.

[Marcia]

Absolute URLs are preferable, and it's not 100% certain but it may make some difference having the full URL if there are keywords in the file paths.

Always, always be consistent with linking to the homepage - decide on either with or without the www part and don't deviate at all, to avoid problems. Sites have been having problems because of inconsistent use, with having the homepage stay in the index with the proper PR it should have.

http://www.example.com/ - safety that way.

That said, I don't always for interior pages within directories on the site for the sake of expediency, like if I'm not sure quite where I'll be putting a new page, but ALWAYS absolute if it's the root index page or the index page of a subdirectory - never, never to index.htm or the like.

[St0n3y]

For the main navigation we always try to use full URLs (absolute links). For repeated internal text links we use relative links.

[seomike]

also linking to directory indexes should go like this

good: http://www.somesite.com/directory1/

bad: http://www.somesite.com/directory1/index.ext


that way the folder gets the PR and you can change the file ext and not have to worry about a score loss.

Also apply this to your url. make sure your link pop and internal linking link back to the domain name http://www.somesite.com/ and not a file

[hinote]

When linking to an external website should the '/' be put at the end.?

[seomike]

I do it out of consistancy. If your method is to link to .com and not .com/ then globalize it with all your clients like you would a work out routine. Just remember what ever is in the href="" is going to get the score so if you link back to your home page using three different methods (.com,.com/,.com/index.htm) then you are watering down your crosslinking. Point them all to just one .

It's not one is better than the other it's pick one way and do it consistantly to the entire site.

[hinote]

Good feedback.... thank you.

We have decided not to use the '/' at the end of the url.
This is fine in Frontpage... remove '/' from url.... gone forever....
When we load up the pages and hover over the link, the browser shows the '/'
Does that mean that the '/' will be indexed....?

[withoutwax]

No. The search engines see the source. Ignore what the browser says.

[Marcia]

You might want to take a look at how the web server sees it

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slashforward/

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/8341.htm

Extra processing on the server end, and on occasion search engines have been known to get a little mixed up - like lately with homepages going AWOL for no apparent reason. It's been traced back to use of filenames in links in some cases.

[orion]

Hi, everyone.

Marcia and many poster, above, are right. The absolute path (and keyword-branded) is preferred.

Some speed optimizer specialists use relative urls to save bits and file size, just for the sake of speed.

About the use of the forward slash ("/"), if you are interested in source code validation or accessibility validation, some validators require the slash for root urls and when ending the url path with a directory (folder). This is more a validation issue and does not affect optimization of relevance at all.

Orion

[Chris Boggs]

So I had a client that I did an initial review for and his page http://hisdomian.com has a PR of 4. Within the site, he linked back to the same content, but instead at http://hisdomain.com/home.asp.

No PR here. So, my question is does this prove that it's better to link to the page without home.asp, or would these links eventually transfer a little PR to that page as well??

I know this is in two threads but I figured this one was the OG

[St0n3y]

for the home page I would always link to site.com/ and not site.com/defaultpage.htm.

For sub pages I always link to the exact filename.

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by St0n3y

for the home page I would always link to site.com/ and not site.com/defaultpage.htm.

For sub pages I always link to the exact filename.

Then you should have the bases covered.

[Chris Boggs]

any feedback on post 12 regarding to trying to raise the PR of the home.asp type link?

also, when you say "for the subpages" stoney and aussie, do you mean the subpage's links should be exact filename for the other subpages and the links on the subpages to the homepage should be to site.com/ without home.asp.

What I am saying might be confusing, but I'm a marketing specialist and not a programmer, so please bear with me...

another way to put it would be can I have the homepage always be site.com/ even from within the subpages?

[Marcia]

can I have the homepage always be site.com/ even from within the subpages?

That's what you want to do is always have all the links to the homepage, including from the subpages within the site, point to www.example.com/ - the absolute URL.

It's the same thing with links to the index page of subdirectories, even within the subpages within the subdirectory itself.

Use www.example.com/widgets/ - not index.htm on subpages within the subdirectory, again the absolute url rather than the filename.

[AussieWebmaster]

Marcia 's got it... also any page should be done in absolute terms... if you have a www.mydomian.com/widgets.html page (and you should name them appropriately) then it should be used not the shortened version ( though this is less imperative as there are no other options for the page) as the absolute gives all the elements.

[hinote]

Hi,
I notice most of the suggested links to the homepage are www.mysite.com/
Is it not better to leave out the '/' as I imagine the majority of links from external sites will be without the '/'
Or, are www.mysite.com and www.mysite.com/ the same from a PR perspective.?

[Marcia]

It's better to include the forward slash. Check out the links a few posts up regarding the server. Most page views will probably be from within the site.

[hinote]

Hi,
one of the early posts said that the PR credits goes to whatever is in the href tag, (ie, - .com, .com/, or index.com)
<META href="http://www.mysite.com">

If there is no href tag, what happens.?