Now I know a lot of our readers are hyped for this post after I promised in Part 1 that I would reveal search queries that would help you find .edu and .gov backlinks as well as dofollow blogs that you can comment on.
Well, after much debate I realized that I can’t exactly just give away all the secrets in the toolbox. As a result, the goal of this post is to open your eyes to the power of search queries by training your mind to focus on finding authoritative sites that are do-follow and will accept your comments. It’s now come time to unleash the power of search queries! Link builders of the world: Get ready, set, go!
How to Find the Links?
Once again this is where the power of search queries comes into play. By simply entering in a few search queries you can literally discover hundreds, if not thousands, of blogs that support the dofollow movement; you can comment on them and get a free backlink. Here is a couple of the most effective search queries to effectively target both do-follow blogs and .edu sites that you can comment on:
Do-follow Blogs
"KEYWORD HERE" "powered by wordpress" "leave a comment" -"no comments"
“KEYWORD HERE” "Remember my personal information" "Notify me of follow-up comments"
Simply replace your keyword in the “KEYWORD HERE” section and enter this query into Google to find thousands of blogs that you can comment on! (Notice how I said comment and not spam?)
Now these blogs aren’t guaranteed to be do-follow. But these search queries do help filter out the majority of the no-follow blogs since they are targeting special phrases that are found on do-follow blogs. Take this strategy further and you can search for do-follow blogs based on “do-follow images” that are usually found on the homepage of the blog. This topic has already been covered extensively, so if you wanted to read more about it then check out an older post from SlightlyShadySeo here.
.edu Links
student blog topic site:.edu
linkdomain:wordpress.org site:edu student blog (in Yahoo)
"blog site:.edu"
"forum site:.edu"
site:edu wiki
These queries will help you find .edu sites and blogs that are open for commenting as well as Wiki’s that are editable. Once again not all of them will be do-follow, and a good majority will probably be school-specific, but at least you’ve done the hardest part and actually found a couple of high-quality .edu blogs that you can comment on. To find more niche-specific blogs simply add your keyword into the query, just make sure that it’s in quotations. From there you will need to focus on getting your comment approved.
How to Get Your Comment Approved?
There's lots of different theories out there but what I found to be the secret touch is= to be friendly! You’d be shocked if I could share with you some of the great link deals and relationships that have evolved from the simple lines of “Hey where you from? I’m from Toronto and … I like hockey/I live near a park with lots of dogs/the sky is blue over here what’s your weather like?” Catch my drift?
These responses are unique and don’t mirror the spammy comments these bloggers receive on an hourly basis. Just goes to show that sometimes you need to think out-of-the-box when it comes to link building: especially if you are trying to stay ahead of the game.
When trying to comment on dofollow blogs you need to remember my favorite word= EFFICIENCY! Don’t just waste your time submitting comments to every do-follow blog. You need to get your comment approved from niche relevant sites with authority.
Now keep in mind that the queries mentioned in this post are still relatively basic! They are merely examples of how you can search for certain terms and phrases that are associated with do-follow blogs. In case any of you were hoping for the magical link building solution within this post then I’m sorry if I disappointed you, but to make it up to all of you I have a couple of great freebies on the house.
Awesome Freebies 🙂
Here is one of the best do-follow blog lists currently in circulation; there are many available but most are just duplicates and aren't categorized by niche like this one. Or you can try using a dofollow search engine like this one, but be warned that the results are somewhat limited (some other ones are better but cost $$). However, if you use SEOQuake it has an option to place a line through the nofollow links; saving you a considerable amount of time.
By now I think you’ve gotten the vibe of my posts and hopefully figured out that my main focus here at SEP is on link building. That being said if you have any burning questions or topics that you would like to see discussed please feel free to post your ideas and suggestions and I will certainly respond and take them into consideration for future posts!
This is a fantastic post. Enough material to work on. Thank you.
¡Thanks for your tips!
Thanks for the shout we really do appreciate what you are doing. We also wrote about your blog about a week ago. Again thanks… This puts the social back into social media!
Thank you for the tip about how to go about to find do follow sites and consequently an .edu link, this is something I have been working on with no success. I hope this useful hint will set the ball rolling.
You have also provided a link to a very comprehensive list of do follow blogs. I guess there is no more excuse on my part, lot of work to be done aha!
Thanks for a great post, Paul, and nice tips on how to search for blogs. I agree that sometimes one should think out of the box when it comes to link building and SEO.
@Comparison/posicio… Thanks glad you found the information helpful!
@Tucson… No problem thanks for the great list!
@Joseph… No more excuses is right! Now you just need time (and a little patience)
@Julia… Thanks for the kind words 🙂
nice post, i learn much..
Hey Paul,
Great post. I have to confess that targeting dofollow blogs is a new tactic…that makes complete sense 🙂 I look forward to trying this out, especially for niche sites.
Thanks again.
I am teaching online stuff offline 🙂 and just today I said that I will do a blogpost of the daily to do’s I recommend regarding online stuff that matters.
There are lots of other combinations that I teach such as using “commentluv” together with the keyword and using a firefox plugin and free software that will show you which blogs are DoFollow.
@dio… Thanks enjoy the tips!
@Max… There’s new link building tactics all the time. Many are implementable they just take time, effort, and of course, a little bit of patience. Hope you get some nice results from dofollow blog commenting!
@Gert… You’re absolutely right about the “commentluv” plugin. You can search for that as well as the “top commentators” query for some great results. Like I mentioned there’s so many queries out there; you just need to start thinking about what specific phrases are associated with do-follow blogs and then go after them!
It’s amazing how much stuff you can do with a li’l ol’ Google search. Awesome tips!
Finding nofollow .edu’s seems a lot like needle in a haystack business for me, even when using smart search queries.
Thanks for the hints!
The queries you listed do not target do-follow blogs. You’ve simply posted some fairly obvious queries to find WordPress blogs, of which most are nofollowed. For instance, this blog would be returned by your queries, and is clearly nofollowed.
Yet you’ve stated “these search queries do help filter out the majority of the no-follow blogs since they are targeting special phrases that are found on do-follow blogs”
This is clearly untrue, although most of the previous commentators seem to have taken your word for it. I suspect they will be quite disappointed should they actually try these queries.
Link Building is not such a tough process when you hit it from the right angle!
The SEO Quake tip is the best one for checking whether links are no-follow with the minimum of fuss. It simply lines no-follow links through if you have ticked “Line through no-follow and no-index”
Thanks for the tips. I would use it to make a site of mine rate better if search results.
@Syd… It really IS amazing what you can do with Google search queries! And you are right about finding nofollow .edu blogs; it’s very tough and takes a lot of time. You may even need to expand on the search queries mentioned in this post.
@George… Thanks for you honest feedback. However, I did mention that “these blogs aren’t guaranteed to be do-follow”…I have personally found many do-follow blogs using these EXACT search queries but it does take time and patience. For instance if you expect every blog to be do-follow you will be gravely disappointed (like you are now). Even the exclusive lists of “do-follow blogs” contain about 15% – 20% (roughly) of no-follow blogs; it’s just the way it is when searching for do-follow blogs.
P.S. Our blog is NOT no-follow for the record! But I wouldn’t exactly call it a do-follow blog either; we have restrictions on what we pass as do-follow= just like most bloggers do when approving comments!
@Jacques… Gotta love free tools that make our SEO and link building efforts more efficient & easier!
Super post there! Comprehensive and well collated material. Thanks for sharing.
Some pretty awesome tips. I’ve heard of some search phrases being used to find links, such as “KEYWORD HERE” “submit link”, but haven’t heard about anything like what you suggested. Great article. Bookmarked.
Great techniques. I look forward to checking out the list of “do follow” blogs. I typically add “-blogspot.com” to my search query. I do this with all the blogger domains because they all use nofollow.
Awesome post about using search queries to find backlinks. Especially about the “….powered by wordpress” lol. That is thinking out of the box.
Keep up the good work.