Absolute Links vs. Relative Links – SEO Value

The debate between absolute links and relative links continues to live on in the SEO world. The individual significance of each has been contested, but it is widely regarded that absolute links provide better SEO value on the whole than relative links.

Many believe that these kind of links have less potential for getting messed up when search engines index your page. It shouldn’t really make a difference, but many conclude that this is reason enough.

Furthermore, content scrapers and RSS services may ‘repurpose’ your content legitimately (or not). In either case, shouldn’t a proper back-link be attributed to your site? This situation favours absolute links. Although this is a minor argument, it’s still worth considering.

However, if you’re using one that doesn’t match your needs, it can negatively affect the performance of your site, impacting your ranking and your SEO strategy. It will ultimately prevent customers from finding you quickly and easily.  

While we do believe that absolute linking can be more beneficial by providing more location context to search, it can be said that there are more places in content where relative linking should be applied.

A relative link or URL only contains the path following your domain. It does not give the complete information location of your site, but instead, it conveys the address that is relative to where you are. Basically, it is the trailing information after .com. For example, the relative link in https://www.jupplee.com/services would just be /services. Whereas the absolute link would be the entire link itself.