Navigation Error: External URLs being treated as internal paths causing 404

[LordAizen1]

Preliminary Checks

• This issue is not a duplicate. Before opening a new issue, please search existing issues: https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues
• This issue is not a question, feature request, RFC, or anything other than a bug report directly related to Gatsby. Please post those things in GitHub Discussions: https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/discussions

Description

While browsing the Gatsby website, I discovered an error in the browser console when links to Netlify are clicked. The website is incorrectly treating external Netlify URLs as internal paths, which causes a failed network request and a 404 error.

Reproduction Link

https://www.gatsbyjs.com/

Steps to Reproduce

1. Visit https://www.gatsbyjs.com/
2. Open the browser console (F12)
3. Click on any link that points to app.netlify.com
4. Observe the 404 error in the console

Expected Result

External links to sites like Netlify should open in a new tab or navigate away from the site directly without generating any page-data.json requests.

Actual Result

The site attempts to load a page-data.json file for what it thinks is an internal route, resulting in this error:
GET https://www.gatsbyjs.com/page-data/https://app.netlify.com/page-data.json net::ERR_ABORTED 404 (Not Found)

Environment

- Browser: Microsoft Edge Version 136.0.3240.50
- OS: Windows 11 Home

Config Flags

No response