The question that I have is whether this is a relative behavior (i.e. whether, for a given domain 'domain.com' Google prioritizes domain.com/short-url over domain.com/longer/url.html) or a global one (i.e. prioritizing short.com/url over very-long-domain.com/nested/pages/hierarchy.html, all else equal).

I can definitely see the local/relative effects being a natural consequence of prioritizing by pagerank, but the global part sounds more like a separate signal.

Does anyone have insights?