A link which shows the full URL of the page being linked to (e.g. http://www.creatorseo.com/social_media/). Some links only show relative link paths (e.g. ./seo_ireland/) instead of showing the full URL.
So which are better and do search engines rank absolute links over relative links?
Search engines automatically convert relative links to absolute links during the site crawl process, so there is no ranking advantage. However, if the URL includes strong, relevant keywords, it is good practice to include the absolute URL in any visible links to indicate credibility of the site or if you expect the URL to be forwarded on, then providing the absolute URL is always a good idea.
Absolute URL's also are better for Canonical URLs.
On the minus side, absolute links may slow the site down, however, this effect is very small if not negligible in terms of overall load times.
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