Change in Link Structure

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Change in Link Structure

A change to hardcoded links: is it now a new link?

berrysharpie

3:24 pm on Jul 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

Hey guys,

I could use some advice about a change we are wanting to make regarding links. Currently our links look like this:

We are considering a change to hard coded links like this:

This is probably a very stupid question but I need to hear it from others just to make sure and ease my worries. Will Google think these are different links now? I can't see how it would but everything amazes me with the bots. If, for some reason, it would think these are new links, we can't make the change.

Please, any advice here would be greatly appreciated before our team starts to recode.

Thanks,

Berry

Ellio

6:29 pm on Jul 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

Hi,

Due to canonical problems we recently changed all our internal links to absolute using the full URL.

Following this change Google started to index the correct number of pages and our ranking returned to near their old positions.

It also helps to avoid getting http pages indexed as https if you have a few secure pages on the same domain.

I would highly recommend changing to absolute links and ensure that all external links point to the exact same URL format.

Good luck.

berrysharpie

6:37 pm on Jul 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

Wow.. Sounds like it's a better way to go then! But do you know if it thinks they are totally new links? Like starting all over?

caveman

6:50 pm on Jul 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

The SE's will see them as the same, so do not worry. Though we don't always do it ourselves, it is generally considered a SEO best practice. The more complex a site is, the more important it is to use absolute links, which prevent the SE's from getting "confused" and making mistakes.

berrysharpie

6:53 pm on Jul 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

Excellent...

Thank you both for the help. I am much less worried now. :)

Cheers,

Berry