Posted by tom.camp on June 30, 2010 at 5:40pm
The SEO guru that I work with is a stickler for having absolute links in the footer navigation. I am not an SEO person, so I cannot verify the validity of this. However, I have created a module that let's you choose a menu to display in a block and outputs the links as absolute links.
Is this something that I should contribute OR is there something that already does this OR does anyone even care about absolute links in footer navigation?
Thanks,
Tom Camp
Comments
Hmm, but Drupal already
Hmm, but Drupal already outputs menu items with absolute paths… ?
Or do you mean full URLs, with a server fragment ("http://example.com/foo" instead of just "/foo")? If so, your SEO "guru" has no idea what they're talking about, because that doesn't make any sense - any functional search engine is already smart enough to determine a full URL from an absolute path without a server fragment. More cargo cult SEO - par for the course for most self-styled SEO experts, I'm afraid. I hope this huckster is not getting paid more than you.
The Boise Drupal Guy!
Hmm... I have worked with him
Hmm... I have worked with him for years and he does get excellent results. However, a quick search on my phone turned up this:
At one point GoogleGuy, an employee of Google, who helps fight crime — or at least helps webmasters — said, and I quote, “absolute links have less potential for getting messed up [when Google indexes your page]. Even though it shouldn’t make a difference, I recommend absolute links.”
I will reserve judgement until I have more information.
When in doubt, go downhill.
Again, we need to
Again, we need to differentiate between normal absolute paths - as in
<a href="/foo">, which the Drupal menu system outputs already - and full URLs - as in<a href="http://example.com/foo">. If this guy is saying the footer menu should have the former, then he is correct, but then there's no need to write a custom module. If he's saying it should have the latter, he's grasping at straws, and "SEO experts" are always easy to spot due to their fistfuls of straw.The Boise Drupal Guy!
I hear ya, and it doesn't
I hear ya, and it doesn't make a ton of sense to me either. However, if you do a simple Google search of "SEO absolute vs. relative links" you will get a ton of articles saying the exact same thing that this guy is saying. He is, as all of the articles you will find, saying that "full/absolute" urls are better than relative urls.
Like I said, I am not an SEO guy. I do know that this guy gets great results. If you don't feel that it need be a module then that is fine. It took me about 15 minutes to create it.
By the way, I have never heard of a link "/foo" referred to as absolute. It is my understanding that they are "relative" to the root directory for the site, which is why they are call relative links. Whenever I hear absolute link I think "http://...". But that is just me.
Cheers
When in doubt, go downhill.
Ok, I see what you are
Ok, I see what you are saying; as long as your link begins with / it is absolute. And that is correct.
However, if you set absolute = true in the l function it will append on the http://... which is more in line with what I am talking about as absolute.
From l function in api:
"'absolute' (default FALSE) Whether to force the output to be an absolute link (beginning with http:). Useful for links that will be displayed outside the site, such as in an RSS feed."
When in doubt, go downhill.