Relative links
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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):
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.
-
Dear Mike,
Thanks! I wasn't looking forward to changing everything. Best...MEJ
-
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.
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
-
Us eof outbound links and referencing sources
Hello everyone, I am writing weekly articles for a website. At times, I am referring to data/statistics from other articles/studies. My question is - how do you include links/references to this material? For example, I notice that some articles cite their sources at the end/bottom. But - some include outbound links to the original source throughout the main content of the article- so that when you click on the link it takes you to the correct web page. So far, I am including a 'Sources' section at the end of my article that includes title, author, date. I am doing this to stop people clicking off my article to check out the link! Do I need a specific sources section if I cite my source as I go along? For example, 'In their 2017 study of life insurance, the Association of British Insurers found that 70% of Brits are without life insurance'. (made up statistic! Different web writers seem to do different things and it's a little confusing!! Sorry if this is rather long -winded! Any help with this would be much appreciated. Thanks guys, Clare
On-Page Optimization | | ClareO0 -
OMG! does Google really consider text-decoration:none as a hidden link?
So I was reading this article today https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/hidden-links/ Can setting a link to the same color as regular text and applying text-decoration:none really be considered a 'hidden link'?
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Broken Links/Images Non Optimized Content Help
Hello, After 4 years of incorrect blog creation and 4000 blog posts I have seen the light. I have implemented a new theme, SEO friendly, based on a yoast website report and have been creating timeless blogs with correct structure. However, I have 5400 broken links and images based on the Broken Link Checker. Additionally, of our 2500 blog posts which are on app reviews, only 500 are optimized so I have been painstakingly been going through each to optimize, while balancing new content output. The trouble is Google is seeing massive changes and we are tumbling in search. Any suggestions on how to approach this as it is my understanding that the broken links/images are doing considerable damage to our website overall. the website is crazymikesapps.com thank you Mike
On-Page Optimization | | crazymikesapps0 -
Page Shaping - No Follow Links
It's my understanding that adding a nofollow tag to pages that aren't of significance to users can help with page shaping and directing google to the most important links on my home page. I have 4 links on my home page that I'm considering adding a nofollow tag to: Privacy Policy, Legal Policy, Anti-Trust Policy, and Help-Desk Because these links are in the footer on every page I think they're probably sucking up some useful link juice. It's doubtful that anyone would actually search for our privacy policy or legal policy to find our site. I'd rather the juice to spread to other pages of use. What do you guys recommend?
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0 -
Too many on page links
I'm having trouble interpreting this data. It says several of my blog pages have too many on page links, some as high as 140 and there is no example of a blog post that they are referring to. What am I missing? I never post more than a handful (5-7) in our 600-1000wd blogs. When I drill down, it doesn't give me very much information except "Found over 41 years ago" off to the right. When I click on the "too many on page links" URL, it provides a long list of website pages that are renamed with the blog name. huh? A lot of this stuff isn't very intuitive, SEOMoz.
On-Page Optimization | | amandahx20 -
Related keywords in title/H1 tag
Hi, I am trying to improve our rankings for pages with photos/images. For the title is it benificial to include keywords that are almost identical in nature? For example: "Brad Pitt Photos and Images" In Google trends photos and images are both commonly used words so including both seems like it would help. When I search for each one separately in Google (Brad Pitt Photos vs Brad Pitt Images) different sites are returned (except for the ones that include both image and photos keywords). I had read that Google knows that Images and Photos mean the same thing, but the search results do vary. I know stuffing all related combinations isn't good, but selective phrases seem to make a difference. Just want to verify if this makes sense. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | NicB10 -
Max # of recommended links per page?
I've heard it said that Google may choose to stop following links after the first 100 on a page. The landing/category pages for my site's product catalog have earned quite a respectable PR and positioning in search results, and I'm currently paginating their product listings (about 200 products in a category) so that only a couple dozen products are shown on the first page, with links to "next page" and "previous page" being accomplished via query string (i.e. "?page=3"). An alternative option I have is to link to 100% of the contained products within the category's landing page (which would increase my on-page link count to ~300) and use CSS/Javascript to allow the user to simulate browsing between pages on the client side. My goal is to see as many of my product pages indexed as possible. Is this done better using my current scheme (where Googlebot would have to navigate to, say, Landing Page -> Page 6 -> Deeply Buried Product Page) or in the alternative method above, where all the links are in a single page? Since my landing pages are currently treated pretty well by search engines, would that "trust" cause them to follow more links than might normally be done? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | cadenzajon0 -
Lots of links on homepage to internal pages with keyword rich anchor text - problem?
Hi, All! We have a new potential client, that when looking at his site with a tool, we noticed that the previous SEO company they worked with filled the homepage copy with lots of keyword-rich anchor text links pointing to different pages on the site - many links going to the same page, just with different keywords. These links are not indistinguishable in format from the other text, which is why we only noticed it with a tool. I certainly wouldn't recommend doing that to start with, but once all these links are there, would you recommend taking them down? Is there any conceivable chance it could help the site? Is there a significant reason to think it will harm the site? Or will it just be pretty neutral? In all that's been written (much by SEOMoz) about only the first link's anchor text counting, do subsequent links work like a no-follow in the sense that they are a waste of the link-juice of the page, or is it as if they aren't there at all? (And is "only the first link counts" still the most widely held theory, or have there been new developments since?) Thanks, All!
On-Page Optimization | | debi_zyx0