Today no one contests the fact that links are essential for the success of a website online. You should have a link count that is good both qualitatively and quantitatively to get good rankings for keywords relevant to your website. Search engines do not attribute same value to all the links indiscriminately. Various factors are taken into account before search engines like Google attribute any value to the links that are coming to your website. At times, the search engine may totally disregard the link and your website may not get any credit from them.

Therefore, before you start your link building campaign for your real estate website, you should know what matters and what does not matter when it comes to links. Without knowing this, all your efforts may turnout to be futile. Here are few factors that matter while building your links.

There are two basic requirements for a link to pass on its link value to your website:

The first important factor is that your link should be embedded using hard coded HTML. Though there are reports that say that Google is also takes into consideration links presented using JavaScript, it is best to stick to HTML. For example the link should be embedded in using the following tag: < a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com” >

The second factor is that the page from which you are getting your link should already be indexed by Google. You will be able to find out whether a page is already present in Google’s index using the site operator in Google. Until a page is indexed, you cannot expect any good to come out of the link embedded in that page.

Factors That Affect Your Link Count

The following factors will block the search engines from taking the link into account.

1.Nofollow Attribute: Today many websites use this attribute to curb the menace of online spamming. Google disregards links that come with ‘Nofollow’ attribute. You must therefore whether a website uses nofollow attribute for its link before you spend your precious time in submitting your link.
2.Redirects – If the link value has to be passed on to the link, then the pages should use 301 permanent redirects in case there should be any need for redirects. If you are using 302 or temporary redirects, you cannot get any benefit for links that go through your temporary page.
3.Robots nofollow – If nofollow attribute is used in the Robot.txt file then all the links in such pages will not get any link juice.
4.Links presented through JavaScript – There are differences in opinions with regard to the status of the links presented through JavaScript. Some say that Google does not take into account JavaScript links while others deny it. It is best to avoid JavaScript links to be on the safer side.

Further Symptoms That Affect the Link Value
Low PR Sites – Google is very careful not to promote websites that try to manipulate the search engines. For example, it can penalize a website that sells links by reducing its PageRank even though the site may have all the other qualifying factors for good PR. Google may stop following links from such problematic sites.
Old Cache Date – This can be an indicator that Google does not consider a website important and that is the reason why its bots do not frequent them. As a result, they have old cache rates. If the page from which your are getting your link has a cache date that is longer than a month, then you should try to avoid such websites because this could also be a symptom of bad neighborhood.
Location of the link – This is yet another factor that affects the quality of the links. Links in sidebars are often devalued as they are associated with advertisements and paid links. It is best to get your links from within the content of the page.

Checking a Link for Its SEO Value

You will be able to check the link value by creating a link on the page with a unique modifier that is rather obscure. If your web page is ranked for that obscure keyword after few days, then it will indicate that the link juice is being passed on from the linking page.

Tags: link buidling, Link Building, SEO