A few days ago we discussed about the importance of .edu and .gov backlinks and how they can affect a website’s rankings. (If you do not know what I am talking about please read “.edu and .gov vs .com backlinks“).
Before we see how you can find FREE .edu backlinks, let’s take a moment to go through .edu sites’ types
- edu blogs: These are normally personal blogs that have created to a college or university domain name, by its students, researchers or professors.
- edu forums: Most educational institutions use forums to provide support to their students. Obviously you will need to join them in order to be able to comment and create a profile on them, but it is worth the effort.
- edu wikis: Sites like wikipedia, where you can create content
OK, I think you got the idea… let’s move to the interesting part….
How to get edu backlinks
Method 1: Google Search
It is pretty easy to find edu blogs, wikis and forum using Google search.
For blogs type:
site:edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “your keyword here”
The explanation is obvious:
site:edu means that the site should be .edu
inurl:blog represents the type of site that we are looking for, in this case a blog
“post a comment” means that we are able to post a comment
-”comments closed” with this term we exclude blogs where comments are closed
-”you must be logged in” with this we exclude blogs that require to be logged in to comment
“your keyword here” here is the place to add our keyword. Remember that we are interested only in relevant sites and not in edu blogs in general, so we have to specify our keyword.
For forums you can type anything from the terms below:
site:.edu “Powered by vBulletin” inurl:”register”
site:.edu “Powered by phpBB” inurl:”register”
site:.edu “Powered by PunBB” inurl:”register”
site:.edu “Powered by SMF” inurl:”register”
site:.edu “Powered by IPB” inurl:”register”
site:.edu inurl:CreateUser.aspx
site:.edu inurl:register.aspx
site:.edu inurl:”wp-signup.php”
site:.edu “powered by expressionengine”
site:.edu “powered by vbulletin” inurl:”register.php”
“leave a comment” site:.edu
“reply to post” site:.edu
Note that in many edu forums you cannot directly add your link, so you have to use an anchor text. You can use the following format
BB Code: [url=http://www.Yoursite.com]Your text here[/url]
For wikis type:
site:edu inurl:wiki “your keyword here”
Method 2: Academia.edu
The process is really simple. You will have to join adacemia.edu as a researcher, create a profile and upload papers or books that you have written.
Here is how it is done:
- Go to academia.edu and sign up
- Select “Independent Researcher”
- Type your keyword in the “Research Area” and see suggestions. Try to find as relevant keywords as you can
- “Add Research Interest” by using again your keywords
- “Save and continue”
- Skip the next two steps.
- Click on your name of your blog on the upper right corner.
- Then cick on “Add Websites” on the bottom left.
- Name=Your Keyword, URL=Your Site, add a website.
- Add another websites if you wish. When done, click “Save”.
- Copy your URL http://independent.academia.edu/YourName/Websites and put in a pinging service (e.g. Pingler.com).
- If you have own books, reports, documents you can add them and then ping them each.
Method 3: Firefox SEO tool
Finding edu sites to add a backlink can also be done using the SEO for Firefox tool.
Here is the process:
- Download the tool and install it into your browser
- Go to Google and type the key phrase you want to rank for
- Under each result, you will see a bunch of new links, one of which reads Yahoo .edu links, click that
- Yahoo will now display the list of .edu results for each result.
- This is a pretty easy way to identify where your competition is getting its .edu links from and where you can likely garner an .edu link as well.
Method 4: Social News and Forums
In this method you are going to use the power of social news websites to find edu forums where you can create your profile.
Here it is:
- Type “edu profile” in the search bar on a social news website (e.g. Digg, Reddit, Slashdot) which will allow you to search for forum profiles of users at .edu sites
- Look for a “View Profile of” or “Viewing Profile” link
- Click on the profile to see if it is active
- Register a profile of your own on the forum
- Update your profile with an image (which may keep your profile from being deactivated)
- Add a signature containing a link to your site
- Post a comment introducing yourself, which gives you a backlink from the.edu website
Method 5: Search Competitor Blogs
Here we use the following command to find edu sites most relevant to your content to get edu backlinks.
linkdomain:http://www.competitor-website.com/ +site:.edu
The Google command “linkdomain” specifies that you are looking for backlinks for the domain mentioned. Make sure that you search without www also as that’s a separate subdomain. The next part asks the search to be limited to sites with edu domains only.
List of .edu Forums and Blogs
In general for the forums, you have to register an account, create and update your profile, make a post and then ping it.
Note again that you are looking only for relevant edu sites. Not every edu site is a good match for your site!
Enjoy…
- bboard.rhodec.edu
- shahpekan.edu.my
- forums.saa.edu
- clubs.db.erau.edu
- sweb.uky.edu
- forum.loni.ucla.edu
- planning-test.taftcollege.edu
- pib.edu.ua
- www.sljhs.ylc.edu.tw
- ptss.amb.edu.pl
- soncadinhcong.edu.vn
- uta.edu/studentorgs
- qcn.stanford.edu
- forum.upi.edu
- forum.auchipoly.edu.ng
- bboard.rhodec.edu
- forum.buffalostate.edu
- forums.saa.edu
- vpma.binghamton.edu
- www.hadley.edu
- oak.conncoll.edu
- online.cofa.unsw.edu.au
- www.jadwiga.choszczno.edu.pl
- sci.rutgers.edu
- forum.loni.ucla.edu
- sp8skarzysko.edu.pl
- maczek.edu.pl/
- www.shahpekan.edu.my
- theory.cm.utexas.edu
- boinc.umiacs.umd.edu
- milkyway.cs.rpi.edu
- eon.ices.utexas.edu
- escatter11.fullerton.edu
- orbit.psi.edu
- qcn.stanford.edu
- volpex.cs.uh.edu
- albert.phys.uwm.edu
- isaac.ssl.berkeley.edu
- setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu
- sudoku.nctu.edu.tw
- pib.edu.ua/forum
- http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?action=register
- http://tecto.gps.caltech.edu/forum/register.php
- http://animage.ucsd.edu/forum/register.php
- http://forums.saa.edu/register.php (onece you add your URL, logout and go to the user list. Once you find yourself, get the link and ping it)
- http://bcnm-dev.berkeley.edu/wp-login.php?action=register (don’t forget to make Web Site public after you add it)
About
Iliana Lola is a full time internet marketer and writer and the owner of Ilianalola.com.
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