Full URL or Relative Link?

[michael007]

For internal links is it better to use the full URL or relative path for links?

Example:
Should I use "http://www.mysite.com/apples" or "/apples" for internal links?

Does it even matter?

[LailaScott]

i prefer the /apple. because it's easier for the bots to crawl your codes.

[Cricket]

Here is what Google has to say ...

We also suggest you link to other pages of your site using absolute, rather than relative, links with the version of the domain you want to be indexed under. For instance, from your home page, rather than link to products.html, link to http://www.example.com/products.html . And whenever possible, make sure that other sites are linking to you using the version of the domain name that you prefer. Inside Google

[bin]

Even I have same doubt...which is better absolute or relative..???

Thanks Cricket for your comment....

[shakir]

Both will be same for SE.. but better use /page name is standard and easy to change in future

[onlineshine]

I prefer /apple to the related links. This would allow SEs to crawl better.

[Avaonline]

I think when we are building a website on the testing server suppose that there is a service page which is to be linked to the other pages then generally we use the relative path like service.php or service.html. But as we make the site online all the relative URls automatically gets converted to absolute URL. So we are using absolute URL in most cases.

Could anyone show me an example of an relative URL which has been used in a website.

[semaphoreseo]

well some of has given suggestion for /page.html

but is we use full url for internal linking, it will be useful for serp and also will be counted one link on domain so automatically called internal linking.

[jitendraag]

I normally use relative URLs, but when I know that my content may be copied by others, I use complete URLs (in blog post).

[GordyMac]

I almost always use relative URLS myself

[ScriptMan]

I create and test on localhost so relative is far easier to use.

Cricket's post gives me pause to think but I doubt that I will change anything.

[nks]

Personally, I prefer to use relative links instead of absolute links. However, as ScriptMan states, I think Cricket's post does make me think twice. There have been cases which I feel that absolute links is the way to go as it help to increase back links.

[admonharr]

Thanks for the info Laila!

[Sharepointengine]

I approximately for ever and a day make use of qualified URLS for my part.