diff --git a/IkiWiki.pm b/IkiWiki.pm
index 1aaa4d33c..dc9b66344 100644
--- a/IkiWiki.pm
+++ b/IkiWiki.pm
@@ -1901,6 +1901,10 @@ sub match_link ($$;@) { #{{{
 		else {
 			return IkiWiki::SuccessReason->new("$page links to page $p matching $link")
 				if match_glob($p, $link, %params);
+			$p=~s/^\///;
+			$link=~s/^\///;
+			return IkiWiki::SuccessReason->new("$page links to page $p matching $link")
+				if match_glob($p, $link, %params);
 		}
 	}
 	return IkiWiki::FailReason->new("$page does not link to $link");
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 424c99ac4..6c068806c 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ ikiwiki (2.69) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
   * meta: Plugin is now enabled by default since the basewiki uses it.
   * txt: Do not encode quotes when filtering the txt, as that broke
     later parsing of any directives on the page.
+  * Fix the link() pagespec to match links that are internally recorded as
+    absolute.
 
  -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:01:00 -0500
 
diff --git a/t/pagespec_match.t b/t/pagespec_match.t
index c61d16122..7c0ac235b 100755
--- a/t/pagespec_match.t
+++ b/t/pagespec_match.t
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/perl
 use warnings;
 use strict;
-use Test::More tests => 56;
+use Test::More tests => 58;
 
 BEGIN { use_ok("IkiWiki"); }
 
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ $links{"bugs/bar"}=[qw{done}];
 $links{"done"}=[];
 $links{"examples/softwaresite/bugs/fails_to_frobnicate"}=[qw{done}];
 $links{"examples/softwaresite/bugs/done"}=[];
+$links{"ook"}=[qw{/blog/tags/foo}];
 
 ok(pagespec_match("foo", "link(bar)"), "link");
 ok(pagespec_match("foo", "link(ba?)"), "glob link");
@@ -55,6 +56,8 @@ ok(pagespec_match("bar", "backlink(foo)"), "backlink");
 ok(! pagespec_match("quux", "backlink(foo)"), "failed backlink");
 ok(! pagespec_match("bar", ""), "empty pagespec should match nothing");
 ok(! pagespec_match("bar", "    	"), "blank pagespec should match nothing");
+ok(pagespec_match("ook", "link(blog/tags/foo)"), "link internal absolute success");
+ok(pagespec_match("ook", "link(/blog/tags/foo)"), "link explicit absolute success");
 
 $IkiWiki::pagectime{foo}=1154532692; # Wed Aug  2 11:26 EDT 2006
 $IkiWiki::pagectime{bar}=1154532695; # after