diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 181c34020..870f93a7a 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 ### Fixed
 
 - Quickstart tutorial is now up-to-date with all package changes ([#674](https://github.com/stac-utils/pystac/pull/674))
+- Creating absolute URLs from absolute URLs ([#697](https://github.com/stac-utils/pystac/pull/697)])
 
 ### Deprecated
 
diff --git a/pystac/utils.py b/pystac/utils.py
index 8232e7a0a..f79493db8 100644
--- a/pystac/utils.py
+++ b/pystac/utils.py
@@ -241,10 +241,13 @@ def make_absolute_href(
     parsed_start = safe_urlparse(start_href)
     parsed_source = safe_urlparse(source_href)
 
-    if JoinType.from_parsed_uri(parsed_start) == JoinType.PATH:
-        return _make_absolute_href_path(parsed_source, parsed_start, start_is_dir)
-    else:
+    if (
+        JoinType.from_parsed_uri(parsed_source) == JoinType.URL
+        or JoinType.from_parsed_uri(parsed_start) == JoinType.URL
+    ):
         return _make_absolute_href_url(parsed_source, parsed_start, start_is_dir)
+    else:
+        return _make_absolute_href_path(parsed_source, parsed_start, start_is_dir)
 
 
 def is_absolute_href(href: str) -> bool:
diff --git a/tests/test_utils.py b/tests/test_utils.py
index 4f6e1d849..453dc6fcd 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils.py
@@ -158,6 +158,7 @@ def test_make_absolute_href(self) -> None:
                 "https://stacspec.org/a/b/c/catalog.json",
                 "https://stacspec.org/a/b/item.json",
             ),
+            ("http://localhost:8000", None, "http://localhost:8000"),
         ]
 
         for source_href, start_href, expected in test_cases: