Do search robots recognise <base>?

Do search engine robots recognise the <base> html tag

[Richie]

I would like to start use the <base> tag on my pages.

If the root url is www.whatever.net then the tag would be <base href="http://www.whatever.net/">.

So links on any page that are written for example as <a href="section1/index.php"> when clicked will go to [whatever.net...] even if the page with the link is in another directory.

So if the page with the link was in /abc/xyz/ then the link would not go to [whatever.net...]

Is this the same for Search engine robots, or would they just try and go to /abc/xyz/section1/index.php and ignore the base tag?

I hope I've not made this too complicated...

[grahamstewart]

Why don't you just use a rooted relative link instead such as <a href="/section1/index.php">?

[grahamstewart]

Oh and Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com] Richie.