Does Google care how you write internal links?
-
I am changing ecommerce platforms. For my internal linking on the old site there was a lot of old links written like this:
http://www.domain.com/page-name
But now i am writing links mostly like this:
/page-name
Will that make a difference to search engines? Is one easier than the other for them to interpret?
-
One advantage of using the first type of URL (the absolute URL) is that if people scrape (copy) your content, the links within the content will go back to your site.
-
So far I have not seen any differenece between the two. In one video Matt Cutts did state that full URL can be safer in some situations though, so if you have an equal choice it would make sense to choose that one.
-
No difference if you use either style - BUT make sure you prefix with / or you will find many 404's being reports from pages where you are inside a folder
For example a link to widgets from your home page resolves to domain.com/widgets but that same link from folder /hello resolves to domain.com/hello/widgets...
-
Hi There!
The first link example is called an absolute URL, and the second is a relative URL. Search engines do not care about the form. One is as good as the other from an SEO perspective.
It is possible to make a case for the prefered use of absolute URLs for some technical reasons, which you should read about here: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/646
Best Wishes!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I am losing 1 point of DA at month? What could it be? I have noticed I have lost 50K (out of 300K) of internal links after a website update, could it be related to that?
I am losing 1 point of DA at month? What could it be? I have noticed I have lost 50K (out of 300K) of internal links after a website update, could it be related to that?
Technical SEO | | albertoalchieriefficio0 -
Keyword links in footer
Hi - I am trying to help a site to get out from under a Google manual action penalty - down as "Partial Matches - Unnatural Links to site".
Technical SEO | | StevieD
I am checking through their links - the site that links most to them is a local directory style site - it has 2,682 links back into 1 page (Home) The directory site was built by the web co. that built my clients' site and they put a keyword link in the footer of the directory site - the keyword was "Buy Truffles". All my instincts say that is a bad thing! But - this is what is perplexing me - they are ranking no.1 for that keyword! Whereas they have lost rankings (i.e. not top 50) for all the other keywords they were targeting. So I don't get it! Can anyone explain why this is. I feel I should I get that link removed but don't want to take out their only ranking keyword! Webmaster shows about 55 different pages in the directory site have a link back to my client. Hope you can help.
Cheers - Steve0 -
Can you be penalised in Google for excessive internal keyword linking?
I have an online shop and 3 blogs (with different topics) all set up on sub-domains (for security reasons, don't want Word Press installed in the same hosting space as my shop in case one gets hacked). I have been on the front page of Google for a keyword, lets say 'widgets' for months now. I have been writing blogs about 'widgets', probably about 1/4 of all my blog posts are linking to the 'widgets' page in my shop. I write maybe 1-2 blogs a week, so it's not excessive. This morning I have woken to fine that the widgets page in my shop has vanished from Google's index. So typing in 'widgets' brings up nothing. It hasn't dropped in the rankings, it's just vanished. A few weeks ago I ranked 3 or 4. Then I dropped to about 6. A couple of days ago, i jumped back up to 5 and now it's vanished. If you type in 'buy widgets', or 'widgets online' or 'widgets australia', I have the #1 spot for all those, but for 'widgets', I just don't exist anymore. Could I have been penalised for writing too many posts and keyword linking internally? They're not keyword stuffed and they're well written. I just don't understand what's happened. Right now I"m freaking out about blogging and putting internal links on my website.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog0 -
Google webmaster showing 0 indexed, yet I can see them all them Google search?
I can see them all the pages showing up in Google when i search for my site. But in webmaster tools under the sitemaps section in the indexed pages - the red bar is showing 0 indexed pages, even though they seem to be indexed. Any idea why is this showing like this? I don’t really think it’s that important as the pages are still indexed, but it just seems odd. Please see in the image.
Technical SEO | | Perfect0070 -
Example of Google Indexing my Feedburner Links
As you can see, there are 2 results for the same page. One is the correct page URL, the other has the Feedburner parameters at the end: http://www.thewebhostinghero.com/articles/improving-user-engagement-with-the-right-blog-commenting-system.html http://www.thewebhostinghero.com/articles/improving-user-engagement-with-the-right-blog-commenting-system.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thewebhostinghero+(TheWebHostingHero.com) Can this cause duplicate content issues? Can I prevent Google from indexing my Feedburner links? My Feedburner settings are already set to noindex, what else can I do?!? 22cfThX.png
Technical SEO | | sbrault740 -
What damage can internal duplicated hidden links do to rankings?
Hi, I have a rental website, www.akilar.com, for Spain. My question is, on the home page we have links to the seperate regions of the country. Somehow in the redesign of the site, these links have been placed on every page of the site and hidden in the code at the top. The links are there as well on each page in the header, these are additional. The page quantity is over 2000 pages. Also this is taking the internal links well over the limit. In anyones opinion what damage has this caused as our rankings of late have fallen. Thanks very much for your help!
Technical SEO | | AkilarOffice0 -
How not to lose link juice when linking to thousands of PDF guides?
Hi All, I run an e-commerce website with thousands of products.
Technical SEO | | BeytzNet
In each product page I have a link to a PDF guide of that product. Currently we link to it with a "nofollow" <a href="">tag.</a> <a href="">Should we change it to window.open in order not to lose link juice? Thanks</a>0 -
Does Google follow links in "id" tag?
Hello, For functionality purposes, I need to wrap separate blocks of content with a tag. The main question is whether Google will follow this URL, even though it is not a hyperlink on the page, just a URL used for functionality purposes. We will have 10-20 of these types of span tags with a different URL for each one, and we just want to be sure that Google will not be following these URLs that are not links. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Hakkasan0