What is/are the pros of using http:// before a url

[VolkanGorgulu]

I can link to a website as www.somedomain.com but usually we use http://www.somedomain.com. Is there any advantages of using http:// or what?

Best Regards

[CaryD]

Yes. You don't want a browser to try and find http://www.mysite.com/www.somedomain.com/ as may happen.

[JREAM]

If you are working in your own site and linking back to the original domain, you can do..

<a href="../../../../../">home</a>

every ../ counts for one folder up.. Maybe not what you were asking but hope it helps
you can use unlimited ../'s and no matter how deep in subfolders you go it will go to the lowest level of your default index.html page.

[r937]

I can link to a website as www.somedomain.com

actually, you can't

try this --

<a href="www.example.com">example.com</a>

and then try this --

<a href="http://www.example.com">example.com</a>

only the latter actually goes where you think it goes

this is just another way of saying what CaryD said

[VolkanGorgulu]

Thanks guys, I got the point.

[logic_earth]

If you are working in your own site and linking back to the original domain, you can do..

<a href="../../../../../">home</a>

every ../ counts for one folder up.. Maybe not what you were asking but hope it helps
you can use unlimited ../'s and no matter how deep in subfolders you go it will go to the lowest level of your default index.html page.

Or can just use "/" at the beginning and start at the root.

[ryanhellyer]

Or can just use "/" at the beginning and start at the root.

You are kidding right? That actually works????

How did I not know something that simple?

... burying head in sand ...

[logic_earth]

Aye it is pretty much the same thing as writing http://mysite.com/images/the_thing.jpg but far more portable to any domain setup (even IP addresses )

Same way the Linux file system works "/" at the very beginning starts at the root.

[felgall]

Within a web page http:// on the front indicates an absolute address, / indicates an address relative to the current domain root and anything else indicates an address relative to the current page.

[asp-hosting.ca]

Aye it is pretty much the same thing as writing http://mysite.com/images/the_thing.jpg but far more portable to any domain setup (even IP addresses )

I actually avoid using relative links, because of site scraping. If somebody scrapes your entire site automatically and republishes the site elsewhere, then all relative links will still work, while if the links are absolute they'll still point to your domain.

[ryanhellyer]

I actually avoid using relative links, because of site scraping. If somebody scrapes your entire site automatically and republishes the site elsewhere, then all relative links will still work, while if the links are absolute they'll still point to your domain.

Me too. Probably why I never learned about how relative links work. They do have some uses occasionally though.

[felgall]

Relative links are more efficient than absolute links because they don't require a lookup of a DNS to find the domain again.

[logic_earth]

Relative links are more efficient than absolute links because they don't require a lookup of a DNS to find the domain again.

Actually thats not entirely true, I don't know how all operating systems work with DNS servers but Windows caches all DNS request/results so it only goes out once to find the IP address.

I'm pretty sure the browser caches the DNS request as well. Any speed difference between relative or absolute is more then likely nothing to take into consideration.

But maybe I myself is being confused what relative and absolute links are...
relative = ../../image/eeeh.jpg;
absolute = /image/eeeh.jpg;

[felgall]

relative = ../../image/eeeh.jpg;
absolute = /image/eeeh.jpg;

Those are both relative links because they are relative to the current domain - one to the domain root and one to the current folder. Absolute links have the http:// domain name etc on the front.

[logic_earth]

Ahh yeah I was getting confused there, file system paths starting with "/" are considered absolute so I was getting mixed up.