Html base and links

[Crusader]

Hey everyone,

I thought I'd try something new and use the base tag instead of writing out full URLs when I make hyperlinks.

<base href="http://www.mydomain.tld/" />

I have a question though, when I make my links do I put a slash before it or not? I've run it through the W3 HTML checker and it showed up fine in both cases... so I'm a little confused on which is the proper way.

<a href="/directory/" target="_top">Directory</a>
<img src="images/728x90.gif" width="728" height="90" alt="Ad" />

<a href="directory/" target="_top">Directory</a>
<img src="images/728x90.gif" width="728" height="90" alt="Ad" />

Note: they both load properly

Thanks!