Instructions on how to provide a link to our web site. This is a first draft and is provided as a general guide. Feedback is appreciated to support@vacationrentalpeople.com
Why do we require a link from you?
An important feature of Internet search engines is their ability to provide relevant results at the top of their list. One factor that affects the way that the search results are ordered is the 'popularity' of a web site, or a particular page.
Popularity is generally expressed by providing links from one site to another - each site that links to another is in effect providing a "vote" for the destination site. So the more votes that a site receives, the more popular it is seen to be, and this is reflected in listing popular sites above less popular sites, all other things being equal.
This is one reason why it is very unusual to see a private home owners own website listed above the major holiday lettings web sites when searching for all but a few very specific keywords.
By providing a link to us, you cast a 'vote' and over time the cumulative effect is that our search engine ranking should improve - helping more holidaymakers find your rental property.
How do I do this?
We have some ready-made example links here
If you are an advanced user you may like to use one of our advanced links below:
If you would like to learn a little more about how web pages and links work, see here
Step 1) Firstly you need access to the software that edits your website, or you need to speak to the person who maintains it for you.
Step 2) Then identify the page that you want the link to go on (at the bottom of the homepage is generally best) or on a 'links' page - that contains links to other relevant travel / holiday home information websites, if you have one)
Step 3) Choose the link style that you prefer. Some examples are below, but feel free to customise if you are comfortable doing so.
Step 4) Edit the page and add the link
Step 5) Upload or publish the changes, and test the link!
How to add the link :
(these instructions are very generalised as there are hundreds of different website editing programs available, all slightly different. However they all basically perform the same job, so the process should be similar)
If you have your website editing software, you need to open the page that you want the link to go on. Typically you would want the link to our site to be unobtrusive - after all, you are giving us credit rather than trying to direct your visitors to our site - so if you are editing the home page, down at the bottom is generally fine.
Then type some text on this page to describe a generic search phrase that people could use to find properties in your location - some examples could be :
Holiday homes in Cornwall
Vacation Rentals Delaware
Gite Rentals in Brittany
Costa Blanca Direct Villa Rentals
Once done, you need to highlight this text that you just typed - and then look for a menu item in your website editing software called something similar to 'Insert / Link' (sometimes right-clicking on the selected text will pop up a menu with a "Create Link" item on it).
This generally will bring up a dialog box with, with typically two or three fields to fill in :
1) Link location - this is the destination on our website that you wish to link to (see below). It should be the homepage of our website, or a page that displays your property in the search results. Don't forget to include the http://www prefix , example would be : http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com
2) Link Target (not to be confused with location/destination). This controls **how** the link behaves when it is clicked on. Typically, you would want to set this to "in a new window", which would open a new web browser window containing our site, and leave the window with your site still open on the users computer. If you have a field called 'Target' but it is asking you to type something in it, rather than providing a list, you should enter "_blank" (a underscore followed by the word blank) which instructs web browsers to open the link in a new window
3) If you have an option for "Link Text" (anchor text) this should already contain the descriptive text that you entered and highlighted above, i.e. "Holiday homes in cornwall"
Once done, don't forget to publish the changes to your site and to test it out
Where to link to?
Where you link to (which part of our site your link directs visitors to) is that part that you are casting your "vote" for. The aim, in order to secure best possible rankings in search engines is to have a mixture of links to our home page and to the location pages that best describe your property.
For example, if your property is in the Scottish Highlands, you could link either to the home page or to a page where your property shows in search results
Please do not link to your property's individual page as the increase in ranking for your individual page will be negligible - and this page already links to you
http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com/
http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com/vacation-rentals.aspx/World/Europe
http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com/vacation-rentals.aspx/World/Europe/UK
http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com/vacation-rentals.aspx/World/Europe/UK/Scotland
http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com/vacation-rentals.aspx/World/Europe/UK/Scotland/Highlands-and-Skye
Advanced links:
A link to our home page - simplest form.
www.vacationrentalpeople.com
code:
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com">Vacation Rental People</a>
code for a more "useful" link to target your property type:
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com">France Ski Chalet Rentals</a>
More specific areas :
example : Portugal Algarve
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com/vacation-rentals.aspx/World/Europe/Portugal/Algarve>Villa rentals in the Algarve</a>
Things NOT to do - Scamming the system
Please do not put the link to our site on a page with a large number of other external links. By doing so (and the definition of "large number" is constantly evolving) there is a danger that search engines will see your site or page as a "link farm" - a provider of external links
Please be careful not make the link invisible.on the page - for example in blue text on a blue background, in ridiculously small text, or on a part of the screen that is hidden by another object - like underneath a picture. Again, search engines are wising up to tricks like this and will penalise YOU for doing so.
Background information - how HTML works
A web page is made up of what is known as text and HTML code - code that hides, invisibly, beneath each web page.
HTML contains a series of instructions telling the web browser how to display specific information - text, images or anything else. It describes what to display, where to put it and any special actions to perform - for example what to do when an object is clicked.
This code consists of instructions placed inside 'tags' - encased inside < > <a bit like this> . Tags also generally come in pairs, one to start an instruction and another to stop it - for example the code :
"this is an <strong> example of bold text </strong> and this reverts to normal"
will display like this :
this is an example of bold text and this reverts to normal
So in this example, the "strong" tag instructs the browser to emphasise the text between the opening tag and the closing tag (which is prefixed with a / )
Background information - The anatomy of a link:
Taking the example code for the simple link to our homepage, we can break this into three parts:
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com">Vacation Rental People</a>
This instruction here , encased in <> signs is called a TAG and this part will not be visible to the user - It is an instruction to the browser to do something. In this case, the tag is an 'A' tag (look at the first piece of text after the < sign) and is an instruction to the browser to modify the behaviour or any text that follows the tag as a link to another page or web site.
Within the tag, there are two instructions.
The first is href="http://www.vacationrentalpeople.com" . This tells the browser WHERE to take the user to, if they click on the link - the text that follows it - in this case the home page of vacation rental people.com. It is important to include the leading http:// exactly as it appears in the top bar of your web browser, otherwise strange results can follow!
The second is target="_blank". This is an instruction to open the linked page in a new browser window - so that users are not directed away from your site if they click the link.
This is the text that the user actually sees on the screen - it is 'outside' of any tags (not inside the < and > pair ) so will be displayed on the screen, subject to any behaviour modifiers specified by previous tags that have been opened and not yet closed.
This is the 'closing' A tag - denoted by the slash / before the letter A. it tells the browser that the end of the previously opened A tag and that it should stop applying the behaviour modifier here.
Last update April 2008.