Shhh - this is a secret…
Okay, maybe its not a secret, but it’s not well known… Until now.
Search engines, especially Google will give you better placement if you have strong sites linking back to you. And when I say strong I’m talking about a high PR (pagerank). It’s best if the sites are relevant to the content you’re trying to rank well on, but having a few .gov and .edu domains linking back to you regardless of the relevancy is always good - especially the .gov sites.
I came across a way to find .gov and .edu blogs and forums that will help give you the link juice you need to rank all that much better. To make spotting whether or not they’re “nofollow” or not I would suggest you install the Search Status plugin. After you install this, enable “highlight nofollow links” by right clicking the search status icon in the top left corner of your browser and then make the appropriate selection. Once this is done any links that are nofollow will be highlighted in red.
How to find .gov and .edu sites that will link to you
Now, here’s the juicy part of this post. In order to find the .gov and .edu blog and forums simply do a search in Google, Yahoo, and MSN with these terms “inurl:.gov+inurl:blog”, inurl:.edu+inurl:forum”, inurl:.gov+inurl:blog, and “inurl:.edu+inurl:forum”.
Now take a few minutes to browse through your results and find the blogs and forums that offer links via comments and forum posts/replies that aren’t nofollow. It will take some time to sift through the results but will be worth it in the long run. Hot tip: Only add 1 or 2 comments/posts/etc. per week. The search engines are smart and will recognize if all of the sudden there’s like 20 new .gov links pointing back to you and you’ll get penalized for it. Be patient and just add a link or two every week or so. In a couple months you’ll see you PR increase a healthy amount (it does take some time).
I know the value of .gov links as my photography website (www.TyHurd.com) only has about 40 backlinks, but one is from the US Dept. of Agriculture (I shoot for them) and it helped my photo site to achieve a PR 3 ranking.
Just remember to NEVER spam anyone - leave thoughtful relevant comments/posts.
Good luck, and remember; patience is key…
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14 responses so far ↓
1 Frank J // Jul 14, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Great article, but this is the part I tripped over “enable “highlight nofollow links” by right clicking the search status icon in the top left corner of your browser and then make the appropriate selection”
You may want to also include that it’s located at the bottom right as well, like mine
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2 Ty Hurd // Jul 14, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Oh, It’s not on mine so maybe it varies for some reason… Thanks for the heads up!
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3 Ty Hurd // Jul 14, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Could be because I have the Compete plugin that’s in my lower right… hmm?…
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4 Fool // Jul 14, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Great tip, I never would have thought of .gov and .edu as a link. Good explanation on how to find them also.
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5 Pavan Kumar // Jul 14, 2008 at 5:34 pm
That’s really a very nice thing… Thanks for sharing…
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6 Jeff Hendrickson // Jul 15, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Do you really think you’re getting Pagerank from that Colorado Department of Agriculture site? And you should mention that link isn’t from a blog comment or forum.
If anyone spends any amount of time searching through .gov and .edu blogs or forums they are wasting their time.
You should be more concerned about your photography site being in Flash.
Anyway, best of luck.
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Ty Hurd reply on July 15, 2008:
Well, I don’t know how else I would have a PR3 on a site that only has a minimal amount of backlinks. Well see if it’s a waste of time when Google updates the PR next as I’ve used this tactic for the blog… I do think it will help - but to each their own I guess…
And why would I be concerned about the flash site? That site is strictly for referral traffic, I could care less if it’s SEO friendly (although it does have an HTML mirror) and most people can view flash sites these days.
That actually gives me an idea. If you offer any sort of writing/marketing/design services, just write your local USDA, offer a discount for local members and you’re sure to get your link added - and it won’t be a forum or blog comment (although I still think those help).
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7 Tom Sawyer // Jul 18, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Ty,
Why do so many sites turn on nofollow? Since installing the plugin I’ve noticed several sites with it turned on, including yours.
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Ty Hurd reply on July 18, 2008:
Hey Tom,
I’ve gone back and forth with the nofollow thing. It’s unfortunate that so many people are into leaving total crap for comments when you’re dofollow. If I received less spam, and more useful comments I would be happy to be dofollow… I may go back - we’ll see…
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Tom Sawyer reply on July 18, 2008:
Ty,
I’m still new to this thing and I noticed my site http://7daybuzz.com is set to nofollow. I didn’t originally design the site, is this something I can change in Wordpress? Also, will Askimet catch the spam comments even if it is set to dofollow?
I’m really trying to gain some knowledge on this whole pagerank thing.
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Ty Hurd reply on July 18, 2008:
Tom,
You’ll have to use a plugin to disable the nofollow in wordpress. You can use: http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-tweaks/dofollow/
Now, askimet will still catch all the spam comments, but askimet isn’t perfect, it uses algorithms to detect spam comments and filter them from non spam. Since it can only check known spam (terms, keyword, and whole comments) originally written spam will likely make it through askimet. Also, once you’re no longer nofollow you will be a target for more comments (spam and real). This can be a benefit as you will have more real and relevant comments, but also an magnet for more spam.
Another thing to think about is do you want to build more of a community through comments, or increase your PR? The more outbound links your blog has vs. backlinks to it (incoming links) the harder it will be to get a higher PR. Diffidently pros and cons to think about.
Hope this info helps!!!
8 Rajesh // Jul 19, 2008 at 2:06 am
Great original post. Good idea.
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9 Robin // Jul 19, 2008 at 6:04 am
Hi Ty,
Thanks for sharing this information with us. I have downloaded this free tool to use. I did see you have a PageRank. I would love to get a PageRank. Still don’t really know how to do that yet. I’ll keep trying though. Have a nice weekend!
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10 Blogging Buddha // Jul 26, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I really doubt, if this thing will work. Its only a matter of time before Google will see something wrong with a .gov website linking to a business blog.
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