internal link - with or without domain prefix - does it matter either way?

1.5.7b php 7.3 Ceon URI Mapping

If linking for example from a product page to a category page is there any benefit or disadvantage in using this <a href="/category name">Anvils</a> versus <a href="domainname/category name">Anvils</a> ... both resolve to the required page (obviously) - question really is how do the crawlers read the latter example from a site quality viewpoint - as an external link because it has the domain prefix? (affecting balance of internal vs external links for the site) .... or still simply as internal? (and a waste of html)

Happy Festive Season !!!

That's absolute vs relative url's - there's plenty of info on Google

https://www.google.com/search?client...ute+domain+seo

including some supposedly from Google themselves

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/...-links/338103/

many thanks Simon, I appreciate it.
cheers, Mike

For site maintenance, the use of relative links is a better option. Reason? If for some reason the changed code is used for a different domain or if moved to/from a sub directory, then there are less changes (if done properly none) that need to be made to pick up and continue operation.

But, continue to evaluate such things from other perspectives as needed.

I always use the native url

Quote:

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index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_12

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which will not break if you rename your category.

The advantage to absolute urls is to prevent site hijacking.

~Melanie