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The Power of Search Queries for Link Building: The Basics and Beyond Part 2

by Paul Teitelman


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!

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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!

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48 splendid comments

This is a fantastic post. Enough material to work on. Thank you.

Comparison Shopping  #

¡Thanks for your tips!

Posicionamiento en buscadores  #

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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!

A Tucson SEO  #

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!

Joseph@1-800blog  #

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.

Julia from Fast Blog Finder  #

[...] at SearchEnginePeople.com provides a Google search query to help you find dofollow blogs based on a keyword [...]

Finding DoFollow Blogs With Google  #

@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 :)

Paul  #

nice post, i learn much..

diorockout  #

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.

Max  #

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.

Gert Hough  #

@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!

Paul  #

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!

Syd McKeever  #

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.

George  #

Link Building is not such a tough process when you hit it from the right angle!

One Year Millionaire  #

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"

Jacques SEOman  #

Thanks for the tips. I would use it to make a site of mine rate better if search results.

Property Finder  #

@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!

Paul  #

Super post there! Comprehensive and well collated material. Thanks for sharing.

Metaspring  #

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.

Love Poet  #

[...] The Power of Search Queries for Link Building: The Basics and Beyond Part 2 Like this post? Subscribe to the RSS feed and get lots more! Leave a comment or trackback from your own site. Posted in Link Building, Team Reading [...]

Link Building Team Reading List 7.21.08 » (EMP) E-Marketing Performance  #

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.

Portland SEO  #

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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.

Trevor  #

Thanks for your tips

Webmaster seo blog  #

I just built yet another list of dofollow sites, but my favorite format is the river, where the most recent posts in the list of feeds rise to the top. Then I browse for blogs to comment on. This gives me a few more options when I can't find recent related posts. I usually find a few posts. Well, I put this list into an OPML file and now use my feed reader to browse them.

Stephan Miller  #

The Power of Search Queries for Link Building: The Basics and Beyond Part 2 | Search Engine People Blog…

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…

pligg.com  #

The dofollow list you provided in your link is indeed very helpful. Thanks a lot.

Singapore SEO  #

This is a great post, and really helpful for finding links. I've used some of these tactics for finding .edu links and also dofollow blogs. You have to really look at the authority and niche to get the best results, as you mention, and you can typically find several good ones that are related unless you are in a very obscure niche.

Contemporary Furniture  #

This is a very helpful article on dofollow blog commenting – thankyou!

Shlomo Artzi  #

I am just starting to get into the whole SEO thing and am quickly discovering that it's a much more difficult field to learn than I thought it would be initially. I am so glad I found this site and I have been reading through many of the blogs.

I must admit that your blogs on link building have been very informative and give me confidence that I can learn SEO. I will be back often. Thank you for your insights Paul.

Shaun Stotyn  #

[...] Paul did a great job explaining how search queries can help in link building, I decided to expand offering the list of such link building queries and also some tips on how to [...]

Switched on's Blog | SEM and SEO Industry Experts | Switched on Media » Blog Archive » Link Building Search Queries Collection  #

Good advice but I think you have to emphasise that comment 'spam' isn't good SEO! In moderation, yes, but spamming is just that – spam!

Gregor  #

gotta love that tip for finding .edu forums. I have been using it to find .edu and .gov blogs for over a year but never figured to use it to find forums !!

Thanks !!! Added you to my blogroll.

Dave (The Other One)  #

Problem is most of the dofollow blogs are now nofollow because of adult and pharma sites spam.

Toronto Condos  #

@PortlandSEO – Your statement about Blogger blogs being ALL nofollow is simply not true. With Classic style Blogspot hosted blogs, yes. But not the New layout styled blogs, you can hack the template to remove the reference to nofollow on the commenting author's link.

Clarification of NoFollow Hacks Blogspot Blogs

Ronnie T. Dodger  #

Thanks for this post, I am only using “KEYWORD HERE” “Remember my personal information” “Notify me of follow-up comments” now I know that there exist a
“KEYWORD HERE” “powered by wordpress” “leave a comment” -”no comments”. Maybe Ill try to use this one, thanks again. Free Gift Box Template

Free Gift Box Template  #

Very practical information on link building, I wonder is the relevency of the link is very important?

chineseguy  #

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Thanks for the tip on finding dofollowers with G, will use it to find more blogs to add to my search engine.

Do Follow Search  #

thanks for the tips and resource of finding dofollow blog. i love reading link building tactics

Dilson Decano  #

@everyone! Thank you all for your kind comments and words of encouragement. Didn't even realize that this post continues to attract so much attention.

You've all inspired me to focus on providing more informative and resource type link building posts in the future, so stay tuned for more soon!

P.S. @Shaun… don't get down on yourself! Everyone needs to start somewhere within the SEO industry and then work your way up: everyone does it, including yours truly :)

Paul Teitelman  #

Here are a few of my favorite searches to help find those special links:
"keyword" inurl:.gov+inurl:forum
"keyword" inurl:.gov+inurl:blog
"keyword" inurl:.edu+inurl:forum
"keyword" inurl:.edu+inurl:blog

Hope your readers find them useful.

Brad  #

Excellent Post. Really usefull for me as a SEO. Thanks mate :)

Marget  #

Thanks for the reference to the Google search. I love to read and I have seen such an increase in traffic and ranking from reading and commenting on dofollow blogs.

Jason@Atlanta Locksmith  #

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