How best to link to your home page with insite links?

[Richmond, Virginia SEO]

Most sites have a link to their home page from subpages. How should the link be coded? I have left of certain understood html code for brevity.

Examples:

1. a href="/" (root based link always goes to site's root index page)
2. a href="/index.html" (root based link pointing to specific page)
3. a href="http://www.sitename.com" (full url pointing to website domain)
4. Other?

I personally feel the first one is best. This way you aren't splitting your page rank that is being passed between your domain name and your page, so to speak.

Especially if all your external links are pointing to "http://www.sitename.com".

I'd love opinions on this. Thanks.

[mattmdesign]

Defnitely use #3

[Toonces51]

I recently heard Jill Whalen (regarded by some as an 'SEO Guru') say the same thing--#3 is the way to go.

Toonces51

[cagintranet]

ive always heard that #3 was the way you were supposed to do it... i think i read it somewhere on these forums a while ago???

[briandunning]

I've always used #1, but I'm interested in why #3 is considered better. How come?

[just-4-teens]

either 1 or 3, ive started using 3 and 2 is a def no no especially if you dont want PR leakage since pr from sub-pages would be goiing 2 index.html and not www. domain .com

[mattmdesign]

Yeah I guess #1 and #3 would work the same.

[briandunning]

Regarding #3 - which one of these should we be linking to?

http://www.domain.com
http://www.domain.com/

[just-4-teens]

i would say with the / on the end but i dnt think it makes any difference.

[adamjthompson]

I don't think it makes any difference, but I normally use #3, as that precludes errors with subdirectories, etc, etc.

[ownsite]

Use # 3 ending with /
If you leave the / out, the protocol will automatically add it which takes (just a tiny little bit) longer.

Most important though is your anchor text.
Don't say Home or Home Page, but include your main keyword in it (which should also be in yourdomaincom).

Case Stevens

[Richmond, Virginia SEO]

Good advice. Thanks everyone.

[adacprogramming]

I can't remember if it was GoogleGuy or Rob Sullavan after an interview with someone at Google that said that they recomended #3. Always be consitant with whether you use the www or not. The search engines still get confused when you have some links with the www and some without.

To Illistrate. Most sites still show a different PR and Link: number with the two variations. ie link:http://www.mysite.com and link://mysite.com

[Richmond, Virginia SEO]

Yes, that I was aware of. Something really odd with a client of mine: www.sillyasstoys.com has no PR but www.sillyasstoys.com/index.asp has a 5. I found somone duplicating his site which was the cause of the drop but still curious.