Within AEM Author, there are two types of hyperlinks used on a web page.
- Absolute: https://www.villanova.edu/university/technology-services.html
- Relative: /content/university/technology-services.html
When do you use one vs the other?
Absolute hyperlinks are used when you are linking to a site OUTSIDE of Villanova’s website.
Why? You need an absolute FULL PATH when pointing to a site outside of our www.villanova.edu domain. If you do not do this, the link will not work for the end users.
Relative Links are used when you are linking to a page within the www.villanova.edu website.
Why? The AEM Authoring tool offers features that can help you manage your content more effectively when using relative links.
**This will be the way you will create your links most of the time.**
What is the main AEM Author Best Practice when creating Relative Links?
ALWAYS start the relative link with /content/ in the path.
Why? The tool looks for the full path structure when functions like link validation and “move” or “rename” tools are used.
What will happen if I don’t put in /content/ when creating relative links in AEM?
- You risk that the link validation will think your link is broken and will disable the link from your webpage automatically when published.
- You cannot leverage the “move” tool, so if you need to rename or move pages on your website later, it will be more challenging to do so.