Spider Crawling

clarify Myth

[fashezee]

I have an associate of mine that mentioned to me that is was better to have
all the links on your site as absolute and not as relative to the file
it is linking to.

It does not make a difference right?

[jdMorgan]

I use the URL-relative linking form, the domain-relative linking form, and absolute links - all for different reasons. I've never noticed any difference with respect to spiders. I use the shortest (most relative) form possible, but take into account that seasonal pages may be moved, and error-handling (such as that for 404 errors) can be complicated by relative links.

Then there is also the <base href=> tag [webmasterworld.com], which allows you explicitly state the base URI for relative links on a page.

HTH
Jim

[Jaf]

It shouldn't make a difference, but some spiders - especially those under development - don't always get the relative logic right. I had this happen just last week.

When this happens you get a mixture of 404 reports and multiple downloads of the same pages (because the spider thinks they are on different URLs).