Hello,

I just read something that tells me that internal links are better (for SEO) if set as absolute links. Is this true? Why?

If so, are there any programs that can change the hundreds of internal links I have to absolute?

Thanksbunches!

What you need is for links to NOT be misinterpreted.

A link pointing to /page2.html from /page1.html will be seen as pointing to domain.com/page2.html from domain.com/page1.html and pointing to www.domain.com/page2.html from www.domain.com/page1.html which splits your PR and causes indexing problems, due to perceived "duplicate content".

You can either set up a site-wide 301 redirect from non-www to www, the redirect preserving the full requested folder and file path; and/or you can use the base href tag on each page to set the base domain for all outgoing links that don't explicitly include the domain name. I avoid putting the full domain name on all internal links to save bandwidth.


I always start internal links with a "/" so that the URL counts from the root, like "/folder/whatever/somepage.html". I always avoid URLs like "../../somepage.html" as they can confuse.

When linking to an index page I always use one of these formats: "/" or "www.domain.com/" or "/folder/" or "www.domain.com/folder/" always omitting the index file filename itself from the URL.