Link coding in web page

[The Magus]

Good evening

I have been looking at the source coding of another site in which the links from the navigation table are shown as " <A href=http://www.mydomainname.com/folder/page.html". Every link I can find on the site follows this format.

The links on my site which was prepared with Dreamweaver and Frontpage shows these links as "<a href="folder/page.htm".

I would like to know if anyone else have seen this sort linkage and if there is any positive reason as to why the full path is quoted.

Is there a benefit and/or would it be worthwhile?

Cheers

Jack
:rolleyes:

[soccer362001]

If the file is on your server you want to use the short path. If you are linking to outside of you page you will need to use the full path.

[The Magus]

Hi again

I realized after I had hit the submit button that I should have made it clear that the long form of the link I quoted referred to the individuals site and internal folders and pages, not another outside site.

I have a couple of outside links which use the long form but this site uses them for internal pages and folders.

Thanks

Jack
The Magus

[DaiWelsh]

There are a few possible reasons to do this on specific links (e.g. when switching from secure to insecure version of site), buit not on every link in the site afaik. Reasons not to are fairly scarce too, but maintainability and needless filesize growth are two examples.

Chances are this was their clumsy solution to a simple problem like a common include file used in different pages in different directories on the site, but you never know, they may have a good reason I have not considered.

If you think they know what they are doing and you really want to understand why then why not email them and ask, they might be kind and share with you.

[The Magus]

Thanks Dai for your comments.

I can not e-mail them as they are my main two competitors in town and they won't tell me in any case. I often see them about town although we rarely speak except for simple courtesy.

The two sites are very highly rated by various search engines which is why I have been studying them because the content does not seem to explain their rankings.

Is there any possibility that this form of linkage could improve search results - can't think of why it should but I am grasping at straws in trying to understand.

Cheers

Jack

[DaiWelsh]

Interesting, I can only think of two possible ways it might help search engines, one is if the search engines are stupid (which I doubt) and treat thes elinks as external links into their site, hence improving listing the other is that they are using some kind of url masking and by using the full link they are getting thepages listed as though they were not using url masking.

e.g. if you have a domain www.mykewlkeyword.com this is good for search engine rating, but if you host it with a host name registrar or similar, but have the actual pages on another host and then use either a form of redirection or a frame to get to it, the individual pages are treated as part of the actual host they are on (say www.cheaphosts/webspace/cheap/userxyz) which is not so good for getting a high search engine rating. Possibly by using the full link and the kewl domain they are improving their rating.

It is a pretty wild guess I admit :D

Do you have a url and maybe that will make it clearer...?

P.S. coimng back to point 1 if you are looking for possible reasons for a good search engine listing then being linked to from other well ranked sites could be one.