Base HREF set without HTTP. Will this cause search issues?
-
The base href has been set in the following format:
<base href="//www.example.com/">
I am working on a project where many of the programming team don't believe that SEO has an impact on a website. So, we often see some strange things. Recently, they have rolled out an update to the website template that includes the base href I listed above. I found out about it when some of our tools such as Xenu link checker - suddenly stopped working.
Google appears to be indexing the the pages fine and following the links without any issue - but I wonder if there is any long term SEO considerations to building the internal links in this manner?
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the comment. I was able to get them to make the changes, but I think I have made some new enemies. Oh well, I will move on in a few months anyhow.
Thanks again,
Joe
-
The W3C standards might allow for no protocol, but you would never just put "//" - that's part of the protocol ("http://", "https://", "ftp://", etc.). This usage is technically incorrect. It could cause minor issues on some browsers (although probably not on newer ones).
Does it matter for SEO? Well, that's a bit trickier. Google tend to ignore base href unless there are ambiguous relative URLs, like canonical tags that have no base URL and are unclear. Practically speaking, it's probably not a huge problem, but it is possible for it to cause issues down the road.
Either way, if it's on a sitewide template, it's a 5-minute job, and what they have is wrong. I'm not one to knock devs (I've been a dev and I've managed devs), but they need to stop arguing and just fix it.
-
They have put it on every page. The programming manager is quick to point out that according to W3C neither http nor https are required for proper links. I have just never seen anyone purposely make all internal links begin with double slashes (//). It certainly makes xenu die, but I am not sure if there is any downside other than xenu and a few other tools not working.
Thanks!
-
Is that code on every page or just the homepage?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate content issue
Hi, A client of ours has one URL for the moment (https://aalst.mobilepoint.be/) and wants to create a second one with exactly the same content (https://deinze.mobilepoint.be/). Will that mean Google punishes the second one because of duplicate content? What are the recommendations?
Technical SEO | | conversal0 -
Sitelink search in google search for Brand name redirect me to 404, how?
Hi All, When I search my brand name in google and in google search result my site appears with sitelink and in site link there is option of search when I search any keyword in that search then that search redirect me to 404 page of my site. I found I have implemented wrong schema at category page for search action and then I fixed the bug but 5 days passed away still google showing 404 of my search action. I have not implemented schema for search action at homepage. Now please let me know what is the issue?
Technical SEO | | amu1230 -
Secure HTTP Change - No Links in WMT
Website was changed over to secure HTTP about twp months ago. Just looked in Google Webmaster Tools and it only shows about 8 inbound links. We did a permanent 301 redirect for all URLs. There are over 800 links according to Open Site Explorer. Is it just that they are showing only the HTTPS inbound links? Should I add the HTTPS version in WMT? Thanks for any assistance
Technical SEO | | EBI0 -
Google showing https:// page in search results but directing to http:// page
We're a bit confused as to why Google shows a secure page https:// URL in the results for some of our pages. This includes our homepage. But when you click through it isn't taking you to the https:// page, just the normal unsecured page. This isn't happening for all of our results, most of our deeper content results are not showing as https://. I thought this might have something to do with Google conducting searches behind secure pages now, but this problem doesn't seem to affect other sites and our competitors. Any ideas as to why this is happening and how we get around it?
Technical SEO | | amiraicaew0 -
Should I nofollow search results pages
I have a customer site where you can search for products they sell url format is: domainname/search/keywords/ keywords being what the user has searched for. This means the number of pages can be limitless as the client has over 7500 products. or should I simply rel canonical the search page or simply no follow it?
Technical SEO | | spiralsites0 -
Increase Search Ranking for CEO
Hi guys My company CEO is concerned that when her name is googled pictures of a glamour model appear in the image results area. The glamour model shares a second name with our CEO and this is why the model's images are appearing. I have been asked to rectify this situation. My CEO has a linked in page and twitter account which are underused but no personal page on our company website. I was thinking of buying the url for the CEO's name and optimizing a small site for her name with bio etc and links to twitter, lined in etc. Would this be the best strategy? Thanks Gavin
Technical SEO | | gavinr0 -
Mobile website settings - I am doing right?
Hi, http://www.schicksal.com has a "normal" and a "mobile' version. We are using a browser detection routine to redirect the visitor to the "default site" or the "mobile site". The mobile site is here:
Technical SEO | | GeorgFranz
http://www.schicksal.com/m The robots.txt contains these lines: User-agent: *
Allow: / User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /m
Allow: / User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Disallow: /
Allow: /m Sitemap: http://www.schicksal.com/sitemaps/index So, the idea is: Only allow the Googlebot-Mobile Bot to access the mobile site. We have also separate sitemaps for default and mobile version. One of the mobile sitemap is here My problem: Webmaster tool is saying that Google received 898 urls from the mobile sitemap, but none has been indexed. (Google has indexed 550 from the "web sitemap".) I've checked the webmaster tools - no errors on the sitemap. So, if you are searching at google.com/m - you are getting results from the default web page, but not the mobile version. This is not that bad because you will be redirected to the mobile version. So, my question: Is this the "normal" behaviour? Or is there something wrong with my config? Would it be better to move the mobile site to a subdomain like m.schicksal.com? Best wishes, Georg.0 -
If I 301 re-direct a piece of content (A) to another piece of content (B) and B is unrelated in subject matter to A, will the referring search keywords to content piece A hold for content piece B?
For example, I have a piece of content about furniture and it ranks in top 5 in the SERPs for the phrase "furniture". If I were to 301 redirect that piece of furniture content to a piece of content about trucks, would the referring keyword "furniture" continue to rank over time for the trucks content? My instincts tell me that in the short term the content piece about trucks would receive traffic for the term "furniture", but over the long term, the trucks content would lose rankings for the term "furniture" since the piece has to do with trucks and not furniture. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | pbrothers240