Hello TUK readers! I have volunteered to relieve our UniKid of posting responsibilities for a day. He will be able to take a day off from the blog and take care everything else. I would like to take this time to invite you over to my blog. Big Ben Patton’s place is a great source for blogging and internet marketing tips for beginners and professionals. I will also take this time to invite you to Relaunch With Big Ben Patton And Win An Asus EEE PC 2G Surf Notebook.
Market Leverage has sponsored an EEE Pc Laptop for one lucky reader, and throughout the month I will be randomly giving away some prizes that you bloggers may enjoy. Like a free year of “swamp” pack hosting from host gator, and many other yet to be revealed!
There are many arguments about what is most important when considering backlinks or content. Normally I would tout off about how content is king, and backlinks is queen. But today I want to share something specifically with the readers of TUK. We all strive to gain quality backlinks at one time or another, whether it is for our blog or latest and greatest internet marketing project. There are a couple of key ingredients that will dictate the quality of your back linking strategy.
Jason and many others have already told you how blog commenting can not only earn you money, but also earn you some outstanding back links. This being said I want to show you an easy way to use Google to find follow on blogs with high PR rankings but instead of the normal .com extension I am going to show you how to get the valuable .gov and .edu back links.
Now before I show you this little trick I know your asking why it matters that you have a few of these much less with high PR. Well as it turns out it is proven that Google adds weight to .edu and .gov back links when considering page rank. This means if you’re at all concerned with your PR you will have a few of these in your pocket and always be looking for more.
I recommend using FireFox so you can have a few plugins running during this wich will make this a bit quicker for you and eliminate the less valuable sites. You should try and get webmastersquared. It shows the page ranks of any links on any page your viewing, making this exercise much simpler. I guess Google toolbar works too, but then you would have to visit each site…
Now that you have that installed, let me show you the way to use Google to find these valuable .edu and .gov back links.
Enter the below command into your search box.
site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “WHATEVER SUBJECT YOU WANT IT ON”
That is all there is to it.
Don’t worry I am going to break it down. I just figured we could marvel at the simplicity of this and the power it will have for this project. First your site:.edu (or .gov) is the extension of what your looking for, this alone would net results of complete irrelevance.
So we need to narrow it down of course.
Inurl:blog – thats what we are looking for a place that allows comments, and our best chance at that will be of course a blog. Again this alone is not enough so lets keep narrowing it down.
We want to be able to post a comment so lets add this to our search string we are building and see what shows up. Simply add “post a comment” to the string and viola we are getting closer to the holy grail. You may notice if your actively surfing between these that some blogs are not update very regularly or have had their comments closed.
This is nothing to fret about so lets subtract these from our results simply by adding -”comments closed” we accomplish this. While we are at it some blogs may allow comments but require you to log in, so let’s kill those links as well so -”you must be logged in”
Wow, now we have a healthy list of blogs and their page ranks that are only .edu or .gov and allow people to comment and have commenting open. The last step while not required will help get you on topic as we know google enjoys links having something to do with each other or having some relevance.
Easy enough lets add one more variable to the string and be done. “Blogging” or “internet Marketing” , “dogs” , etc you get the point put your subject that you want to seek out and the do it. Now make sure the blogs you are commenting on you are doing at least a halfway good job because these folks were not born last night and every day I see more and more of these blogs going no follow because people choose to abuse them.
Make the effort here and you will be rewarded and the sites will stay open. Now you should be out getting these quality .edu and .gov back links for your site. No more excuses just action. If you’re interested in learning about other blogging and internet marketing tips stop by Big Ben Patton’s Place and subscribe today!
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September 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
hey Ben, i have just been doing this strategy this morning hehe. In a little bit different way though. good tip ben. This will enlight many readers
Hugo Santos’s last blog post..Monday Link Love
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Ryan McLean (95 comments) Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Hey hugo,
What is the way you have been using which is a little bit different? Will it help us? Please share
Ryan McLean’s last blog post..Should Your View Your Business As a Hobby?
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September 9th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Nice little trick here. I already started looking into it and oit seems relly cool. Thanks for the info
Bruno Auger’s last blog post..Best CPanel Hosting
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September 9th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Great Post ….There was a time when the Goggle Algo gave high prominance to websites that linked to .edu and .org . This prominance has lowered since the last few updates , it no longer validates these links high. It give more importance to quality link backs.
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ZK (2 comments) Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Apoligies , I meant back links from .Edu and .Gov sites
ZK’s last blog post..Shoemoney’s T Shirt arrives
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September 9th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Wow… great post! This is really useful info and I did not know about edu and gov urls having more weight with Google.
I will have to hit some of them up.
btw… the firefox addon ‘SearchStatus’ over at http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus is a really useful tool.
It places Google PR and Alexa Rating down on the firefox statusbar and you can even right click and check highlight nofollow links to find out if your links are going to be dofollow or not.
CreatingRevenueOnline.com’s last blog post..Brainstorming for Articles
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September 9th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Good post Ben! I was reading about this type of linking on another blog last week, not the same method, but the same idea. You’ve laid it out very plain for us rookies
Normal Joe’s last blog post..IMwithJoe.com Monthly Update
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Hi Ben,
Good info. I don’t see what part of the search string determines if the Blog has do-follow comments.
I am finding some good places to post to though.
Rich Hill at Link Money
Rich Hill’s last blog post..Ultimate Blog Designs UBD Releases Citrus Professional Themes for WordPress
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
This is really nice info. Great post. I was doing something different for myself, but I admit this is better.
Aleks’s last blog post..Site: Couch surfing
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September 9th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
How valuable are backlinks when they are only in the comments section?
Are they very valuable or not really???
Ryan McLean’s last blog post..Should Your View Your Business As a Hobby?
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Minnesota Weekend Getaways (38 comments) Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Conventional wisdom is that they’re not as valuable as a link in the body of a post, but are valuable nonetheless.
Minnesota Weekend Getaways’s last blog post..Three Wonderful Art Museums in Minneapolis
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September 10th, 2008 at 12:16 am
I recently adopted Chrome as my default browser but, after reading this post, I called up FireFox and installed the webmastersquared addon!
Together with the .edu/.gov search parameters I’m ready to expand my Google Reader population!!
Thanks!!
p.s. Chrome is still my default…
Alexander M Zoltai’s last blog post..Peace ?
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Brad Blogging.com - Personal Blog Tips And Blog Help (1 comments) Reply:
September 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Haven’t tried Chrome yet.. Mozilla works fine for me
Great post on the backlinks.. Your strategy is simple and unique. Great job Ben!
Brad Blogging.com – Personal Blog Tips And Blog Help’s last blog post..Weekend Wordpress Security Tip: Update Your Old Plugins
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September 10th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Thanks for this Ben! I never thought of giv & edu sites! I will go check out your contest too
Chelle’s last blog post..Living Together Before Marriage
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September 10th, 2008 at 3:02 am
to sum this all up, you can always let me someone at digital point to do it for under $20… saves your time…
Melvin’s last blog post..The Huge Value Of Testing Stuffs
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Nice trick, however it seems like most of the pages aren’t do-follow enabled, so I don’t see any SEO benefits.
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Also try to look for “site:.edu :inurl:wiki”
BlackhatWay’s last blog post..Flipping A Website: Making Money After The Sale!
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BlackhatWay (71 comments) Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 5:27 am
“site:.edu inurl:wiki” I mean.
BlackhatWay’s last blog post..Flipping A Website: Making Money After The Sale!
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Thanks a lot for that wonderful trick.. You are again going to hit 1000 Readers
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September 10th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Nice tips. Finding quality backlinks and saving time in the process. Tat’s what I like!
Cheers!
Jay
SuiteJ’s last blog post..Get A Free Ebook Cover Design
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September 10th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Guys…
It’s a good post on the whole, but it won’t help you find follow links unless you search…
Now – there are two plugins for Firefox you should use.
The first is SEOQuake, which allows you to sort pages by PR, Alexa etc after you do a Google search. This will make things a lot easier.
There is another plugin which highlights do/nofollow links… now, I cannot remember the name of this but I will try to look it up. It will make things loads easier, as each page would take a second to check with it.
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September 10th, 2008 at 7:25 am
I think gov and edu’s value on search engines have lowered. The strategy will consume you alot of time.
charles’s last blog post..Host Review | Godaddy at $1.99 per year website
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September 10th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I saw these searches on DigitalPoint the other day
@Jason – SEO for Firefox has an option that highlights the NoFollow links btw
Otooo’s last blog post..Results Of The Contest
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September 10th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I’m only getting 6 results when I run the search string…
Alexander M Zoltai’s last blog post..Peace ?
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Jason (702 comments) Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Strange – I get 97,000 when I run it, without the subject.
Results 1 – 10 of about 97,000 for site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in”
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Alexander M Zoltai (3 comments) Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 8:30 am
ok, removed subject, got 27,800…
Alexander M Zoltai’s last blog post..Peace ?
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September 10th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Great post Ben! I’m always wanting to learn the different ways to manipulate Google searches….
For the addon that highlights no follow links, it has already been mentioned here by CRO: http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus
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September 10th, 2008 at 9:26 am
[...] did a guest post this week on TheUniversityKid.com. I decided to share with everyone How To Get Follow .EDU and .GOV Backlinks. Make sure you stop by and read this cause it’s simple and effective and you should be doing [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Excellent tip, thanks very much. Those edu links are few and far between, but seem to be very valuable when you can find them.
Minnesota Weekend Getaways’s last blog post..Three Wonderful Art Museums in Minneapolis
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Ben,
Thanks for the info. I am in need of backlinks, so this is a great idea. I appreciate it. There you go sharing all that again. I love it.
Peace
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Glad to help everyone out on this, it should not take much time spend 10 mins a day for a month and you will see. I did not mention I have SEO for firefox installed witch highlights the proper links for me. Either way a quick fix for back links!
Big Ben Patton’s last blog post..Weekly Round Up Late Edition
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September 11th, 2008 at 3:40 am
I know that .edu and .gov do get a lot of weightage but I did not know about webmastersquared, and am going to check that out now. Thanks for the tip
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September 11th, 2008 at 5:01 am
I like the term you use “Swamp pack”. Not only is it funny it also describes it to a tee.
Eva White’s last blog post..Dressing For The Recession
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September 11th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Thanks for these tips.. but I personally dont think that google much importance to .edu and .gov still I will give it a shot
SEO Tricks’s last blog post..Namecheap September 2008 Coupon
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Minnesota Weekend Getaways (38 comments) Reply:
September 11th, 2008 at 11:24 am
They certainly used to give them quite a lot of weight, but I know there’s been discussion recently that they’ve started discounting such links.
Minnesota Weekend Getaways’s last blog post..Three Wonderful Art Museums in Minneapolis
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September 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Is there any experiment done to see if .gov and .edu backlinks are more important? I’d love to see.
SEO Tips’s last blog post..Namecheap September 2008 Coupon
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Ganesh (106 comments) Reply:
September 14th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Good idea. One should do an experiment to see whether .edu and .gov links give real value.
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September 11th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Ben,
This was a bit over my head man. I’m going to reread next week and let it swirl around my little brain.
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September 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Great post. Thanks for informing us on this trick. I will start right away.
Ways To Earn Online’s last blog post..Earning Money Online: Factors To Consider
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September 12th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I would like to suggest to you to make a post about how to find “clean” edu or gov blogs. I have found several swamping of spam or comment forbidden.
Aleks’s last blog post..Pussycat Dolls – When I Grow Up
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September 14th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I don’t understand why one should get backlinks from .gov and .edu blogs. I’ve searched for .edu blogs once and I feel like I’m spamming since I’m commenting only for the sake of gaining backlinks.
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October 3rd, 2008 at 5:11 am
Just ran across this post again. I had forgot about this. Got to put it into my business. Good stuff!
Freddie’s last blog post..Monday’s Motivational Moment: Urgency
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December 1st, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I have tried this and I have found several good places to comment on. Nice post.
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January 9th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
There are 5 houses in five different colors
In each house lives a different nationality.
These 5 owners drink a certain beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet.
No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.
The CLUES:
The Brit lives in the Red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane Drinks tea.
The Green House is on the left of the White House.
The Green House’s owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the Blue House.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
The QUESTION:
Who owns the fish?
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January 16th, 2009 at 5:26 am
You rock just found this page and am already using it.
Quick Weight Loss Tips & Reviews’s last blog post..Quick Weight Loss Tips – Squidoo Lens
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January 22nd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
As you can see, my site relates to a subject that would not traditionally be found on a .edu or a .gov website i.e. How To Lose Man Boobs. Is the technique you refer to appropriate for sites that, while not being what is usually called ‘Adult’ are rather outside the mainstream?
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March 22nd, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Nice I like it. I just did a few. Great Idea!
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July 7th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Hey Hugo,
This is a different concept. Will it help us? Please share.
Aditya´s last blog post..mandy arora, Brad Kline, Joseph A. Oricchio, Jr. and 7 more joined Virtual Edge for Virtual Events, Virtual Meetings & Communities
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July 7th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I can’t understand the inurl blogs as its results are not what I was expecting
Aditya´s last blog post..mandy arora, Brad Kline, Joseph A. Oricchio, Jr. and 7 more joined Virtual Edge for Virtual Events, Virtual Meetings & Communities
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August 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 am
Thanks, I still prefer to just have someone do it for me at a cheap price. I don’t have the time or the work effort for it, lol.
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September 8th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Thanks for the pointers.
But, isn’t it true that many .edu and .gov blogs set up their comments to “not follow”? Therefore after all your hardwork, search engines aren’t picking up your link and you’re not getting the .edu or .gov backlinks you were looking for.
I recommend using SearchStatus – it shows if the link is “followed”.
Thanks!!
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September 18th, 2009 at 6:05 am
Hi there.. It’s gr8 articles.. Coz I’m searching for backlinks
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September 21st, 2009 at 12:42 am
This is a great idea. But us newbies are left on our own about how to figure out how to use webmastersquared for finding the page rank of the blog urls that come up. I uploaded webmastersquared to my Firefox browser but am at a lost about what to do with the addon or where to find it in the browser.
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October 26th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Thanks for this post. I’ve been searching for an easy way to find these top quality backlinks for several days. Luckily I came across your site. It is now a permanent part of my linking strategy.
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December 3rd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Yeah, this way is working sometimes. Sadly, many blogs with those extension now used to close their comments form. So, it’s barely useless.
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January 12th, 2010 at 2:45 am
This is still effective kind of links if you are looking for strong backlinks.
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February 11th, 2010 at 7:10 am
Thanks for this great info
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February 17th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Thanks, Ben. I wondered how to find good links on .EDU & .GOV sites. Gonna give it a try right now…
Thank you, Brad Joyner
Brad @ Bed Plans´s last blog ..Platform Bed Plans
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March 3rd, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Great tips, and yes there some excellent firefox plugins for this kind of stuff if you don’t want to pay.
Hand Yoga
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March 22nd, 2010 at 11:07 pm
In your opinion, what is the fastest way to build backlinks to a website?
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May 29th, 2010 at 6:24 am
I love your post. Thanks. What I wanted to suggest to anyone looking for free backlinks is to search for “keyword” + “U Comment I Follow” in Google. It works really well, cause the webmasters want your blog comments, and you can put your keyword in your name link – everyone wins.
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June 6th, 2010 at 5:56 am
Good stuff. Where can I subcribe to your RSS feed?
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June 29th, 2010 at 6:15 am
Ok this was pretty fun to read but I got lost about 1/2-way through. Suppose I shouldn’t drunkenly google but ah well.
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July 16th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
[...] How To Get Follow .EDU and .GOV Backlinks | The University Kid – I just figured we could marvel at the simplicity of this and the power it will have for this project. First your site:.edu (or .gov) is the extension of what your looking for, this alone would net results of complete irrelevance. … [...]
July 18th, 2010 at 3:12 am
I really wait always before making my move, and that move is looking into your blog to find the right information I always do that.
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July 18th, 2010 at 3:12 am
Is it ok If I bookmark your post in my blog, thanks in advance
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