when is a link a broken link and when not?

[Mark_A]

I have a few files, some of which refer to pdf files in links as

/directory/file.pdf

and other times as

directory/file.pdf


There is only www.domain.com/directory/file.whatever
All html pages are in the root.

However my link checkers go crazy about /directory/file.pdf saying that it is a broken link.

It could be a broken link, but MSIE8 can find the resources linked to that way, displaying images and honouring links to pdfs and the like.

So, is:

/directory/file.pdf broken and
directory/file.pdf correct

?

[Mark_A]

Dissapointed no one had a crack at this.

I just changed all /directory/file.htm links to directory/file.htm and my link checker likes them a lot more.

[phranque]

directory/file.pdf is relative and /directory/file.pdf is root relative.

it's likely your link checker is handling root relative links incorrectly and not prepending the hostname and is handling the relative links as it should.

[Mark_A]

Hi phranque, thanks for your response, yes I suppose that could well be the case. Apparently our developer also has problems in that their link checking tool also falls foul of root relative links.

Anyhow sorted now, all are relative.

Thank you for your response.