Correct form of link for SEO Options

[Beth]

Hi. I just want to make sure I am clear on something before I upload my new site. I've read through the FAQ's but still am unclear. When using links in my site, I have them like this:

CODE

<a href="big-sister-t-shirts.html">Big Sister Shirts</a>

instead of:

CODE

<a href="http://www.thecozycactus.com/big-sister-t-shirts.html">Big Sister Shirts</a>

Is that ok? Will the search engines will still follow and index the links without the full URL?

Thanks for helping me understand this!

[pandy]

Yes, sure. Relative, root relative or full URLs. It matters not.

[Beth]

Thank you!! I should have asked a long time ago!

[BeersDesign]

Sorry, but I beg to differ with that other respondant. You need to use the full URL like http://yoursite.com. AND you need to decide if you want to use the www version or not. Meaning http://yoursite.com versus http://www.yoursite.com and STICK WITH your preference all the time. If you are getting links, it's obviously to rank better in the search engines, so I'd recommend you do some research and learn more about it, so that you maximize the time you'll spend. Visit these blogs: http://seobook.com and http://seomoz.com/blog.

Good luck!

[pandy]

Sorry, but I beg to differ with that other respondant. You need to use the full URL like http://yoursite.com.

Why?

AND you need to decide if you want to use the www version or not. Meaning http://yoursite.com versus http://www.yoursite.com

In the case of relative links, that's already decided by the base URL, no?

[andyf]

If you area more concern about SEO while using such URL then " Spiders like to crawl absolute url. ( full path) "

please ref blog post at http://blog.webhosting.uk.com/2007/01/20/t...e-and-relative/ for information.

[stjepan]

First, read my signature, line one.

Second, robots have something called "URL Resolver" that converts relative URLs into absolute URLs and after that make doc's ID. So, I see no reason for full URLs.