Internal links: relative vs. absolute Nov06 '05

I’ve noticed that links, in my content, that I hard-code as relative don’t always appear as such through feed readers, or other external applications.

For example, let’s say in this entry, I decide to link to my RSS section, for whatever reason.

That link above is hard-coded as /rss/. That’s it. There’s no preceding http://www.matthom.com/..... And this is acceptable, because, while at my site, the browser understands /rss/ as http://www.matthom.com/rss/.

This is not the case, however, at external sites, which use my content - such as feed readers.

For example, at Bloglines - my feeds appear under a realm of http://www.bloglines.com/myfeeds. So, that hard-coded link to my RSS section ( /rss/ ) would appear as http://www.bloglines.com/rss/. Notice how the browser picks up the domain name, and then appends the "request URI." Obviously, I don’t want to direct people to http://www.bloglines.com/rss/.

So, for this reason, it would make more sense to hard-code all internal links as absolute, even though it’s easier said than practiced.

More opinions

Michael Nguyen has talked about this, in regards to search engine optimization - but I’m not sure the "feed reader" angle was covered. The discussion was more centered around whether or not to use a trailing slash.

Far from having to go back and re-enter all of my URL’s as absolute - which is not a terrible pain to do - but it is hard to consistenly do. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to writing out full paths, every time I link to something internal.

Why write out this: http://www.matthom.com/rss/, when I can simply put /rss/? Or why write out this: http://www.matthom.com/, when I can simply put /?

The future is not RSS readers?

I’m inclined to leave my internal links, as is. Why? Well, I don’t really believe that the future completely lies with content syndication. Sure, it’s a major help, when it comes to reading dozens, or even hundreds, of web sites - and it’s simply an excellent notification tool - but my content is my content. I shouldn’t have to change it, for other applications.

Categories: Links , RSS , Usability , Web Development

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It seems to me that this is a simple bug on their side. Hopefully not all feed readers have the same behavior. Have you tried emailing them to as ... Read more.

Yeah I'll confirm that Liferea doesn't have that problem. I'm opposed to absolute links because, reasons of moving domain names aside (which is 'ba ... Read more.

matthom is published and produced by Matt Thommes - an independent publishing enthusiast, mobile blogger, content creator, informative writer, web developer from Chicago. Never one to conform, Matt intends to promote the effect the web has on our lives, in an effort to intensify, instruct, and clarify all that is happening around us.

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