Here’s a quick set of rules to follow for search-engine-spider-friendly URL and linking structure.

1. Use absolute links rather than relative links.
2. Decide on whether you want www in front of your domain name, then keep it consistent.

1. Absolute vs Relative Links

Absolute links have a forward slash (”/”) before the URL path. This tells the web browser and search engine spider to look for the URL from the root of the domain. In essence, this means that with absolute links, it’s like specifying “http://www.yourdomain.com” before the URL path.

An example of an absolute link:

<a href="/yourpage.html">Absolute linking</a>

In the above example of absolute linking, the web browser and spider will look for the URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/yourpage.html, regardless of the current directory.

Relative links don’t have a forward slash before the URL path. Relative links tell the web browser or search engine spider to look for the URL from the current directory.

An example of a relative link:

<a href="yourpage.html">Relative linking</a>

In the above example of relative linking, the web browser and spider will look for the page, “yourpage.html” in the current directory. Therefore, if the relative link is located on a page in a directory, such as, http://www.yourdomain.com/directory/page1.html, the browser and spider will look for the page, “yourpage.html” in the directory called “directory” and not in the root directory.

Using absolute links tend to be a little search engine friendlier than relative links. Search engine spiders, whether it’s Google, Yahoo, MSN or some other spider, tend to get a little less confussed with absolute links than relative links.

2. www vs non-www

With search engines, it really doesn’t matter whether you use www before your domain name or not, as long as you keep it consistent! For example, if you choose http:www.yourdomain.com/ as your root page, then any requests for http://yourdomain.com should be permanently redirected to your chosen root page. This permanent redirect can be done using a .htaccess file, see this page for instructions.