Using the full url of your site in file paths to pages on your site.

[john278]

Hi,

I was just wondering if using something like:

<a href="http://www.domainnamewithcontent.com/games/1.html">test</a> rather than using <a href="games/1.html">test</a> will descrease any performance on your site.

Does it slow down the loading of pages.

Also what about when getting about 20 images for the page using <img src="http://www.domainnamewithcontent.com/image/img1.jpg" /> instead of <img src="image/img1.jpg" />

Will all this slow down the loading of a page or add to the server load.

[r937]

performance difference will be so small as to be unmeasurable

however, consider the inflexibility -- what if you change the path? you will have to edit all your pages

use "root relative" paths (that start with a slash)

thus, change this --
<a href="http://www.domainnamewithcontent.com/games/1.html">test</a>

to this -- <a href="/games/1.html">test</a>

but not this --<a href="games/1.html">test</a>

see the difference?

[logic_earth]

Doesn't effect page loading one bit.

[trampt]

Doesn't effect page loading one bit.

It does a lot if you are yahoo. The extra 1KB saved for shortening all the links on the front page, time millions & millions of page views daily .... it definitely adds up.

For a small/medium personal or business site ... no difference.

[john278]

What's wrong with using that in your quote then?

but not this --<a href="games/1.html">test</a>

[r937]

this -- <a href="games/1.html">test</a> -- is relative to the folder that the file it is in which contains this link

this -- <a href="/games/1.html">test</a> -- is relative to the root folder of the site, and will work no matter which level of folder it's in

[john278]

So if I am getting it right, you mean that if I have a url http://www.domainname.com/games/games2/games3/1.html

and I then wanted to link to a image that is located in the images file in the same folder as what the games folder is in then all I do is use:

<img src="/image/image1.jpg" />

and I don't have to use

<img src="../../../image/image1.jpg" />

this -- <a href="games/1.html">test</a> -- is relative to the folder that the file it is in which contains this link

this -- <a href="/games/1.html">test</a> -- is relative to the root folder of the site, and will work no matter which level of folder it's in

[john278]

I have just tested it and it does mean that. I had never new that. It just shows that there is still things to learn about html even though you think you know most of it.

Doing /image/image1.jpg is much easier than trying to work out how many ../../../../ to put in when you have a long url that has many folders.

Great stuff.

Thanks!

[deathshadow]

See, negative linking or rooting to me is bad practice, because it quite often precludes local testing... It's why my website designs are all laid out cascading downwards from the HTML/CSS.

HTML/CSS
+----images
+----scripts
+----inlines

so in that case my images would be in images/ and not /images/, since I cannot/willnot guarantee that my website is necessarily going to be in the root of the local drive/url/what have you.

unless of course, the site has php theming, then my structure is
HTML (and page specific CSS)
+--- common images
+--- themes (CSS)
____+--- style images
+--- scripts

In that case, images that get called from the stylesheet go in style_images/, while images that get called from the html go in common images/

I won't even use negative paths (../) because that's the same as 'cross-linking' in programming, and from a programmers standpoint that's just bad form. (The term 'spagetti code' comes to mind)

You make everything cascade downward it's just a HELL of a lot less headaches. If it warrants a subdirectory, place that subdirectory UNDER where it's being called from, and you are truly portable.