When OTTO flags the warning "Field 'url' contains a relative URL — absolute URLs are required", a URL field in your schema holds a path instead of a full web address. Find the field, prepend your site's protocol and domain, and the warning clears immediately.
⚠️ What This Error Means
Schema markup standards require every URL value to be absolute — it must include the protocol and domain so search engines can resolve it unambiguously. A relative URL is missing that prefix.
- Relative URL (invalid):
/blog/my-article - Absolute URL (required):
https://www.example.com/blog/my-article
Any value that begins with / or ../ is relative and will trigger this warning.
🔍 How to Find the Affected Field
OTTO does not currently highlight the specific field causing the error, so you need to locate it manually inside the schema editor.
- Open OTTO and navigate to the schema that shows the warning.
- Click Review Schema to open the schema editor.
- Scan every field whose key is
url,image,sameAs,contentUrl, or any other key that holds a URL value. - Identify any value that starts with
/or../— these are the relative URLs you need to fix.
This issue appears most often in Article, Product, BreadcrumbList, ImageObject, and Organization schema types, but can occur in any schema that references a URL.
✏️ How to Convert a Relative URL to an Absolute URL
Once you find a field with a relative value, update it by prepending your site's full protocol and domain.
- Note your site's root domain — for example,
https://www.example.com. - Click the affected field in the schema editor to edit its value.
- Replace the relative path with the complete absolute URL.
- Click Save to apply the change.
Example:
- Before:
/products/blue-widget - After:
https://www.example.com/products/blue-widget
Repeat for every field in the schema that still contains a relative path. A single schema can have multiple url fields — each one must be absolute.
✅ How to Confirm the Fix Is Complete
- After saving, click Review Schema again.
- Check the validation results for the "Field 'url' contains a relative URL" warning.
- If the warning is gone, your schema is valid and ready to deploy through OTTO.
If the warning persists, at least one more field still holds a relative URL. Return to the schema editor, locate the remaining instance, and apply the same fix.
🎯 You can now identify any relative URL field inside an OTTO schema and convert it to an absolute URL to pass validation. For a full overview of how OTTO validates and deploys schema markup across your site, see the OTTO Schema Management guide.