links to home page. which is best?

[junglesnail]

Greetings all,

I was hoping you guys can help me with this.

Which is the best way to link to your home page :

Is it best to use internal links <a href ="index.php" ></a> or anchors like <a href="http://www.example.com"> </a>

Thanks.

[Noton]

Its best to use the absolute version of the URL:
<a href="http://www.example.com"> </a>

This is because the spiders will always properly index your homepage as www.example.com and won't have problems if other sub-domains or https types are used by mistake.

[wheelie34]

Agree, absolute is best but don't forget that trailing slash

<a href="http://www.example.com/"> </a>

[junglesnail]

what's with the trailing slash ?

[junglesnail]

i mean what about the trailing slash ? why is it neccessary?

[rocknbil]

Unless you have specific reasons for doing so, the full url is just overhead. Not needed, not needed at all. Any search engine will index

<a href="/">home</a>

as http://www.example.com/

"Confused with subdomain" I just don't understand. There is a distinct difference between
<a href="/">home</a>
and
<a href="http://widgets.example.com">home</a>

However, FROM a subdomain,
<a href="/">widgets</a>

will return to
http://widgets.example.com

Which is actually an ease of maintenance issue, you can move the page from the domain to the subdomain without changing links.

But the search engines will still see it as http://widgets.example.com.

Typical examples of where you want to use the FULL url:

<a href="/">home</a>
<a href="https://example.com/login/">Log in</a>

From secure pages, to get OFF https and allow the site to run faster,

<a href="http://example.com/">home</a>
<a href="/login">Log in</a>

[edited by: phranque at 7:57 am (utc) on April 22, 2009]
[edit reason] unlinked urls [/edit]