Internal link structure

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Internal link structure

Is this correct?

Eljaybe

6:36 pm on Oct 19, 2006 (gmt 0)

Hi. I am managing SEO for a client's site that uses CMS.
It's been a struggle getting some of the pages indexed in Yahoo mostly. I know there are little or no links to these pages within the website. And with this CMS you cannot name a page URL whatever you want - it is a serious of letters and numbers that automatically code each page name. My question is regarding the internal link structure. If I see a link in the source code that shows something like: <a href="/cms/site/b4a779891d32e86d/index.html"
... would a search engine understand this and be able to follow this link (since it's clearly missing the first part of the URL/domain name?)?

caveman

4:51 pm on Oct 20, 2006 (gmt 0)

Eljaybe, those are relative URL's (as opposed to absolute URL's, that are independent of context).

There is some potential for SE's to get confused with relative URL's, so it is considered a best practice to provide absolute URL's when practicable. That said, unless the site is very complex or the coding gets messed up, relative URL's are not a big problem. We use them all the time, and have never had any issue.

As for kw's versus no kw's, the main advantage to having kw's in the URL as opposed to random numbers and letters is the ability to help the SE's understand what that page is about.

But, as long as the structure is relatively simple as is the case with the example you've provided ... and doesn't include lots of special characters ... you should have no problem getting those pages indexed.