> There are pros and cons to both absolute and relative URLs in links:

> Absolute URLs:
> + help keep the links pointing to your content if someone were to copy
> it (*)
> + help keep the links pointing to your domain name if you cannot
> select a canonical (can't do 301 redirects)
> + help make sure that you're pointing to the right URL even if you
> move things around (say for stylesheets or graphics)
> - cannot be tested on a staging / testing server (eg locally) (unless
> you insert the links dynamically)
> - makes it hard to move content (unless the links are inserted
> dynamically)

> Relative URLs:
> + make it easy to move content around
> + make it easy to test locally and on a staging server
> - are easy to break if linking to content that isn't moved as well
> (stylesheet, graphics, etc)
> - an evil scraper would have less work (*)

> There's a middle ground as well, using absolute links without a domain
> name, eg: <a href="/resources/green/mostly/page.htm" ...>

> Personally, I prefer to use relative URLs + some absolute (without
> domain name) ones to shared resources. The advantage of being able to
> test things out 1:1 on a staging server can't compete with the pseudo-
> protection against scrapers.

> The only place I would use absolute URLs would be if the site is
> hosted somewhere where the webmaster can't do a 301 redirect and may
> have trouble with duplicates. I've seen this a lot with sites hosted
> on a free account with the ISP; often it will be hosted ashttp://isp.com/users/~name/site..., then perhapshttp://domain.com/site...
> andhttp://www.domain.com/site... . By using absolute URLs in that
> situation, any value passed to one of the wrong URLs will
> automatically pass value to the correct URLs as well.

> If you have a really good CMS you may be able to change from one to
> another and use a staging server without much work. In that case, it
> probably doesn't matter which one is chosen.

> John

> (*) Regarding the evil scraper scenario: I think this is overrated and
> those who have problems with it usually have other problems to worry
> about. Also, most scraper software recognizes absolute links and swaps
> them out anyway.