Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : SEO / SEM Discussions : Full url path or not?

[lexington]

Within pages I always used /dir/index.php or just index.php. I sometimes used the full site url such as http://www.test.com/index.php within the same page even though index.php will do just fine. I mainly did it so that search engines can see my site's domain name on the page. Do you think that is good for SEO? Thanks.

[lexington]

If anyone knows please let me know asap. Thanks

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by lexington

Within pages I always used /dir/index.php or just index.php. I sometimes used the full site url such as http://www.test.com/index.php within the same page even though index.php will do just fine. I mainly did it so that search engines can see my site's domain name on the page. Do you think that is good for SEO? Thanks.

No. In the case of the home page you should be linking to http://www.test.com/ internally and not using any other derivatives like:

http://www.test.com/home.php
http://test.com/
http://www.test.com/home

doing this would confuse the search engines and have them thinking you have multiple home pages.

[lexington]

Well not just the homepage that was only an example. I meant linking internally to any page. For SEO purposes does it matter if I use <a href="page5.php"> or <a href="http://www.test.com/page5.php">

[incrediblehelp]

I prefer absolute when possible, but the SE's just want you to be consistent with whatever you pick.

[awatson]

I don't think it matters much - presumable the SEs are smart enough to understand absolute/relative links. I think the only issue is how you refer to index pages, you should be consistent there.

[bizcredit]

I dont think it does matter at all. But I would prefer to use mod rewrite so that in can be SEO friendly