Absolute Links vs. Relative Links – SEO Intrinsic Value

Absolute links and relative links are two different ways of specifying the URL or hyperlink to a web page or resource. In terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), both types of links have intrinsic value and can affect the visibility and ranking of a website in search engine results.

The links on your website come in the form of Absolute URLs and Relative URLs and are used to point to different pages and content on your site. In terms of SEO, absolute links are beneficial because they provide clear and unambiguous information to search engine crawlers. Search engines can easily follow absolute links and understand the context and relevance of the linked page or resource. Additionally, absolute links can help preserve the integrity of the link structure even if a page is moved or the domain name is changed.

Root-relative URLs are not dangerous for technical SEO, but they shouldn’t be used in the canonical tags and the hreflang values. Google stated that using the absolute URLs is better for hreflang and canonical values. The same is valid for Protocol-relative URLs too.

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A relative link, on the other hand, specifies the URL or path to a page or resource relative to the current location of the page containing the link. It does not include the full web address but instead provides a partial path or file name. Relative links are often used within a website’s internal linking structure. For example:

<a href="/blog/article.html">Read more</a>

Relative links are advantageous for maintaining internal consistency within a website. They are easier to manage and update since they do not rely on the full URL. However, from an SEO perspective, relative links can be less favorable compared to absolute links. Search engine crawlers may have difficulty interpreting relative links accurately, especially when evaluating the relevance and authority of the linked pages.

In summary, both absolute and relative links have SEO intrinsic value, but absolute links are generally preferred for providing clear and unambiguous information to search engines. Absolute links can help improve the visibility and ranking of a website by facilitating easier crawling and indexing by search engine bots. Relative links are useful for maintaining internal consistency within a website but may require additional context for search engines to fully understand their relevance.

An absolute link is a complete URL that includes the entire web address of a page or resource. It contains the protocol (e.g., “http://” or “https://”), the domain name (e.g., “www.example.com“), and the specific path or file name (e.g., “/blog/article.html”). Absolute links provide the full and direct path to the linked resource, regardless of the location of the page containing the link. For example: