Absolute URL's better for spiders?

[jprickitt]

Is this true? I've always coded with relative links and never had a problem. What drawback would this have if true?

Using relative linking when changing directories:
When changing directories is it best to employ an absolute or fully qualified URL? For example, the URL would be http•//www.example.com/ and then remainder of URL.

The reason I heard was that SE spiders are NOT intelligent like web browsers. With relative URLS they tend to stop before proceeding onto a new directory. With absolute URLS they tend to stop only when they time out.

Anyone heard of this?

[edited by: caveman at 10:43 pm (utc) on Oct. 26, 2006]
[edit reason] delinked link [/edit]

[caveman]

It makes a difference if the SE's get confused or it's badly coded. I have *cough, cough* lots *cough cough* of sites with relative links that are doing in the SERP's.

It's really only a problem for badly coded or very complex sites...and even then, spotty.

BUT, hard coding (absolute) URL's is considered best practice, on the theory that better to be perfect than to risk small or greater losses in traffic. Can't really screw up absoluite URL's unless you have typo's.

Purists get mad at me though, when I say things like this.

;-)

[Darkelve]

"Purists get mad at me though, when I say things like this."

Or people with really big sites which have to change their directory structure for some reason.

[mroute]

[Or people with really big sites which have to change their directory structure for some reason.]

Surely it is better for these people to just leave the site as is, as changing it after the whole site is already indexed would result in lost of serps for pages that had them?

[Darkelve]

Wouldn't server side redirects solve that?

[cabowabo]

I have found in my career that SEOs prefer absolute and webmasters prefer relative.

I think in this case, the SEO knows better when it comes to what is better spider food. The webmaster likes the relative paths in case something changes in the directory structure and it is a much easier fix.

Cabo

[caveman]

Surely it is better for these people to just leave the site as is, as changing it after the whole site is already indexed would result in lost of serps for pages that had them?

Wouldn't server side redirects solve that?

Keep in mind that the topic of this thread is absolute vs relative URLs. Changing the code of a link from relative to absolute does not mean a change of URL or page location. It simply adds certainty that the link will be followed appropriately by the bots and site visitors, which is why as cabowabo suggests, SEO's tend to regard absolute URL's as best practice.