When linking pages, does google give higher value to href="http://www.mydomain.com" than href="/"?

Question

When linking pages does Google give higher value to:

<a href="http://www.mydomain.com"> </a>

Vs.

<a href="/"> </a>?

I am wondering because I have heard that (for SEO) it is better to provide the full HTTP address when linking to the sites homepage.

As I thought about it, I wondered why that would be. Would Google really assign higher value to <a href="http://www.mydomain.com"> </a> instead of <a href="/"> </a>? They both mean the same thing.

Do you guys know or have any resources on this?

Answer 1

In your example both are exactly the same thing so no preference would be given to one or the other. The only time you can run into options is when you use /index.php and http://www.mydomain.com as they would then be considered two different URLs and duplicate content issues would arise. That's when canonical URLs would need to be used.

Answer 2

Check this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9onOGTgeM

They said using full url is less bug prone. But I think you should use href="http://www.mydomain.com"