newbie question

[JackFrost]

I'm very new to all this and have a question that I did not see asked on any other threads.

When building a site what is the best way to display your links in the code?
What I mean is when I view the source code of different sites I see links displayed differently as far as the coding goes. From a SEO standpoint what is the best way to do it.

** Note this is not my site it is just one I took to use as an example.**

<a href="http://www.americanhiking.org/hikers_store/products.html">Hiker’s Store</a>

or

<a href="hikers_store/products.html">Hiker’s Store</a>


Another one


<a href="http://www.americanhiking.org/index.html">Home</a>

or

<a href="http://www.americanhiking.org">Home</a>

or

<a href="index.html">Home</a>

I have seen every way done on many sites.... What is the right way or best way to do it?

Simple question that I have tried to find a definitive answer to. But to no advail

[kevsta]

dont think it makes very much difference except that whatever you do you should do it consistently throughout the site.

[incrediblehelp]

Kevsta is right consistency is very important. I have seen relative and absolute internal links both work. I do remember hearing sometime ago that Google preferred absolute links slightly, but I can’t remember what thread it was on or what conference.

[inertia]

Dont link back to index.htm coz it leads to duplicate home page problems. Stick with the basic url for links to the home page.

Ive also heard that absolute links are the way to go but havent really seen much evidence of it being essential.

[alhefner]

Both absolute and relative links work well if your "link text" is well optimized. You may also think of putting a "title" attribute into your links. The title attribute will allow you to place a bit of a description to with the link. like this:

<a href="http://www.somesite.com title="resource for the ...... in you">hiker resources</a>