ASP.NET MVC `Html.ActionLink` between “Areas”

Strange indeed. Steps that worked perfectly fine for me:

1. Create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 application using the default Visual Studio template
2. Add an area called Admin using Visual Studio designer by right clicking on the project

3. Add new Controller in ~/Areas/Admin/Controllers/MeetsController:

   public class MeetsController : Controller
   {
       public ActionResult Index()
       {
           return View();
       }
   }
   

4. Add a corresponding view ~/Areas/Admin/Views/Meets/Index.cshtml

5. In the layout (~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml) add links:

   @Html.ActionLink("Admin", "Index", "Meets", new { area = "Admin" }, null)
   @Html.ActionLink("Admin", "Index", "Meets", new { area = "" }, null)
   

6. Run the application.

Rendered HTML for the anchors:

<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/Admin/Meets">Admin</a>
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/Meets">Admin</a>

As expected the first link works whereas the second doesn’t.

So what’s the difference with your setup?