Gather .edu and .gov backlinks (enhanced)

by Daniel Scocco

Sometime ago I wrote the article “Gather .edu and .gov backlinks” where I argued that, despite the lack of official documentation, most SEO experts agree that .edu and .gov backlinks do carry a higher value for search engines.

If you are looking to increase your search engine juice, therefore, it could be a good idea to collect some of those backlinks. On the article I described a simple search query that could be used to find blogs with .edu or .gov extensions:

site:.edu inurl:blog “keyword″

The only problem with that query is that it will return all the .edu blogs with the specified keyword, including the ones where comments are closed or where you must be logged in order to post a comment.

Using a couple of Google operators we can exclude those blogs from the results, making the whole process much more efficient.

site:.edu inurl:blog “comment” -”you must be logged in” -”posting closed” -”comment closed” “keyword”

Bear in mind that you should not post meaningless comments just for the sake of getting a backlink. Always try to add value and contribute to the discussion, otherwise you will just be polluting the blogosphere.

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78 Responses to “Gather .edu and .gov backlinks (enhanced)”

Alex on May 10th, 2007 1:10 pm

Yesterday I found an .edu site giving away free links. It got me interested so I started searching for other .edu sites (with no success). You just helped me a lot Daniel, thanks!
Community Building Blog on May 10th, 2007 1:34 pm

You would also need to ensure those blogs have removed the ‘nofollow’ attribute from the comments section.

- Martin Reed
Daniel on May 10th, 2007 1:49 pm

Martin, that would be optimal, but almost impossible.

Also the “nofollow” argument is a shady area since search engines are not 100% regarding how they treat them.
egon on May 10th, 2007 8:52 pm

Great post, Daniel. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Thanks for reminding me.
egon on May 10th, 2007 8:52 pm

forgot to subscribe to comments…
richard on May 11th, 2007 2:15 am

Useful tips. I tried it for my keyword, economics and found some interesting blogs, I’m not sure how much comment links are worth to search engines though, but if it gets traffic that’s good.
Baxter Tocher on May 11th, 2007 5:00 am

Thanks for this tip.

@egon, you might wish to try coComment, which saves you having to manually subscribe to comments:

http://www.cocomment.com/
Narendra.s.v on May 11th, 2007 7:18 am

nice blog
Amanda on May 11th, 2007 9:05 am

Like narendras comment?

I don’t know much about getting the link backs carrying more, I think its more about the work you put into it.
Dave Butler on May 12th, 2007 6:10 pm

Based on what I’ve seen with some domains that I own I’d agree that the.edu do carry more weight (ie trust or whatever you want to call it). Honestly hadn’t looked at .edu blogs earlier something to consider.
Tim on May 21st, 2007 6:22 pm

This post couldn’t have come at a better time! I just started my backlink/PR intitiative for my site. Great info! Thanks.
kevstelo on June 10th, 2007 11:14 pm

I think I’ve read something simillar a few days ago. I don’t remember where, might have been on digg.com or slashdot.
auto cars on June 23rd, 2007 4:11 am

i think the gov or edu backlinks are hardest to get.
term paper on July 3rd, 2007 9:34 am

For my niche edu sites is the best way to promote.

Thank you.
sara on July 4th, 2007 7:11 am

Thanks for the great tip.
toplist on July 7th, 2007 5:32 am

thanks
jimmy on July 22nd, 2007 6:36 am

that is some great tips

it depends what keywords you use but this is great information for the newbsite or people that want more traffic.
Buddha on July 24th, 2007 6:14 am

Thanks fr the tip!!!
Burak on August 7th, 2007 7:46 pm

Really does this work?
Also will it be a backlink?
Preston on August 25th, 2007 11:15 am

.edu and .gov links are more powerful than any other TLD. Example: http://www.google.com/search?h.....digits.com – out of 5650 google backlinks, 5 of the top 11 are .edu.

Google also ranks backlinks by their strength.

I have access to get very powerful .edu and .gov links including on http://www.adison.edu – If you need .gov or .edu links contact me.
vca examen on September 19th, 2007 6:47 am

Thx for the backlink i should say
but indead its a good technique for backlinks in blogs and so on !!

http://www.vcadirect.nl
Dunstan on December 3rd, 2007 9:29 am

Thanks for the post, it has been very very informative indeed. SEO rocks!
tomibmtom on February 5th, 2008 7:31 am

more than I didn’t to ramble caught it horizontal that returned leaf
Free Traffic Tips on February 9th, 2008 12:23 pm

Hi friends

It’s difficult to comment in .edu & .gov sites.
anyone have a list of these sites. Please post here.
hattrick on February 10th, 2008 1:13 pm

Thanks for the info on backlinks (especially edu and gov sites) and site building very useful fo a newbie setting out in the world of internet and web building
Rizki Akmanda zaymi on March 2nd, 2008 9:26 am

thanks for the tips….
gout on May 8th, 2008 4:33 am

backlink from edu and gov…not easy to get. I already many article thats gov and edu very powerfull backlink. I need not only backlink but also traffic…. give me some positive suggestion , thanks
Will Gruver on June 6th, 2008 2:30 pm

Thank you for the information. I am interested in consulting with you sometime. Thanks for the backlink to….

http://www.uspowerco.com
SEO Genius on June 22nd, 2008 7:18 pm

I read about this a while ago on DP forums however i have never came across any edu sites that are relevant to my website and to be honest i doubt i will be able too.

Where is the evidence that edu sites are much higher quality backlinks?
seewoman on July 9th, 2008 9:50 am

look speed yahoo busy busy deliver red head
Otel Rehberi on July 21st, 2008 9:55 am

nice article
Free Site Listing on July 31st, 2008 4:25 am

Great Post, Wow That’s how it works very nice..:) It really do something… thanks for the tips
WritingServices on August 16th, 2008 1:22 am

Very interesting article.

But I would advise people here to post only 1-2 entries per week. Search engines are pretty smart these days to detect artificial link building.

Just be patient, it will work.
Online shop on August 17th, 2008 1:37 am

Thank you very much for this
Tiger balm on August 17th, 2008 1:38 am

Hi,

Thank you, I try this morning a create 10 new links but I don’t know if ok or not
Regards
Chris
oto dizayn on September 8th, 2008 8:17 pm

yes edu gov inurl:.edu
meanfull on September 10th, 2008 12:09 am

thank you for you share!wonderful!
Windows Vista Themes For XP on September 20th, 2008 4:22 am

Thanks for the heads up. Just got 3 links from .edu approved. Will be interesting to see whether they make a difference or not.

Walter
Linda on October 20th, 2008 7:43 pm

Great post for finding .edu and .gov backlinks. Thanks!
baume du tigre on November 11th, 2008 10:06 pm

Hi,

Good post, I try but very difficult to find a good backlink in gov
Tiger balm on November 11th, 2008 10:08 pm

Where is the evidence that edu sites are much higher quality backlinks?
Are you sure now, a .edu is better ?
Produit naturel on November 11th, 2008 10:09 pm

Hi, thank you for you share..

backlink from edu and gov is not easy to get but thank for this post
Raja on November 22nd, 2008 12:27 pm

Great, Great and Great. It will save a lot of time and will get more results in less time.

Raja
http://www.way2college.com
voip on November 26th, 2008 12:35 am

great instructions, thank you
Creating A Business Plan on November 28th, 2008 9:06 pm

Thanks for the tips – cheers
Hector on December 2nd, 2008 1:50 pm

I am looking for .edu and .gov links now. Anyone had any luck so far?
Info Millionaire - G Allan Roberts on December 17th, 2008 12:54 am

This information has really help me thank you so much… I’m right at the tipping point of get my blog to number one in my niche. The edu and gov back links will help a lot.

~ G Allan Roberts
DIYdavid on December 18th, 2008 1:02 pm

I’m interested to know if anyone has got one this way. It is easy said than done.
Games tutorials on December 19th, 2008 11:09 am

Thank you very much
Outsource Accounting on December 27th, 2008 6:08 am

Thanks for the tips
grants on December 30th, 2008 5:17 pm

i agree with you david
Apply for a grant on January 25th, 2009 1:53 pm

great article, I am gonna check these stuff
Luna Vita on January 31st, 2009 5:04 am

i would love to see my pr soaring with the help of edu/gov baklinks.. thanks for the info dude
Luna Vita on January 31st, 2009 5:18 am

hey.. after writing the comment.. i searched for the links using the info u had posted.. man U R GENIUS.. thanks.. nw i can get edu and gov baklinks… thanks dude.. God bless you and my pagerank
Alexandra on March 2nd, 2009 10:14 pm

Can I take part of your post to my blog?
dmar9 on March 9th, 2009 9:58 am

I just couldn’t work out how to get those sort backlinks. I was even thinking of forking out for sodtware, but this works sweet and can be applied so many different ways…
Mike on March 20th, 2009 2:54 pm

Good site…Providing good techniques. Thanks
Celeb News on March 20th, 2009 4:49 pm

Thanks for the information! I quit giving blogging tips awhile back. :
Chris on March 24th, 2009 5:46 pm

This is a great method. I’ve been using it with great success!
Mike Hype on April 1st, 2009 4:30 pm

This is awesome! Can’t wait to share it with my blog readers
Tom on April 6th, 2009 3:21 pm

How do you use google to filter out the nofollow blogs?
Rein Valdez on April 8th, 2009 2:46 pm

Thank you very much for the enhanced version. It will greatly help me in my SEO activities.
denny on June 1st, 2009 6:52 pm

hi guys.. thanks for usefull information
Chad on June 21st, 2009 1:14 am

I think an important thing to remember is to make sure you are commenting on blogs and such that have a relevance to your site.
800 numbers on June 29th, 2009 3:40 pm

Great info on using advanced features of the Google search box. Thanks for the post!
anton on June 30th, 2009 6:17 am

Thank you for your information,I have tried some suggestions but does not appear to be too successful.I will try to implement suggestions from you and hopefully be successful
Move2 on July 20th, 2009 8:11 pm

Thanks for this.

I’m just starting to learn about backlinks and this advice has been really helpful.

Still, it’s very difficult to find places to post with relevant topics.
Matthew L. on September 27th, 2009 5:23 pm

Very good post. I fully believe that you’ll get more link juice if you’re connected with a .Gov or .edu site. They appear fairly difficult to get linked to, though.
Carl on January 26th, 2010 1:32 pm

But almost ALL blog comment links have the nofollow attribute. I don’t see how this will help in SEO.
Diana on February 16th, 2010 4:29 am

If a blog has a nofollow tag set then from what I understand Nofollow on a site affects outgoing links from that site. It tells the Search Engines not to follow any outgoing links so if you put your link on that blog Google wouldn’t give you credit for that link.
Diana on February 16th, 2010 4:42 am

If you wanna know if a blog has DOFOLLOW or NOFOLLOW linking, you could hover mouse over page and right click. That should give you a choice to go to ‘View’ and ‘Page Source’. Once you are there do a search by pressing Ctrl F and then type in NOFOLLOW. If you see the word ‘nofollow’ then you won’t get a search engine countable backlink. If it says nothing, it’s a dofollow and yur good for a search engine countable backlink.
Diana on February 17th, 2010 4:40 am

Added note for above post after you type in NOFOLLOW press enter. You can also check for NOFOLLOW in a page’s coding if yur using GOOGLE CHROME by pressing CTRL G, then typing NOFOLLOW in the search box and pressing enter…..you can quickly check every blog after that just by pressing CTRL G as long as you still have NOFOLLOW in the search box.