How to find .gov/edu links

[gregz06]

Hey folks! As I’ve promised in some thread a couple of days ago, I’m going to show how I find decent .edu/.gov websites to get a backlink from.

Well, I’ve heard lots of opinions on the value of backlinks from edu/gov sites, some say Google finds them more valuable (though Google had officially claimed that all TLDs are treated the same), some think it’s too difficult to find quality edu/gov donors, and some just don’t care much about them.

If you ask me, it’s just a part of my backlink strategy among various other methods. If I find a decent donor and it’s not that hard to get a link, then why not?

Enough talking, let’s see how I do it.

There are different well-known ways to get a link from such websites, and there is no one-size-fits-all method. I divide them into 2 categories:

• Ones that are easy to get and are usually not that useful (forums, blog comments)
• Ones that require some effort and are really useful (resource pages, special offers, scholarships, engaging with politicians and scientists, writing positive reviews)

The first one is quite obvious, all you need is to find decent edu/gov blogs and forums and then you know what to do. Sometimes only students are allowed to engage with them, but 20 bucks will do the job.

When it comes to the second one, it depends on the website I’m working on. What I mean is not all methods will be suitable for you. For example, if you are selling some products or offering some service (especially if you target a certain area) it will be quite easy to get a link by offering a 5-10% discount for the students and staff (it may actually also drive leads).

If you have a news portal or any other informational site you may write a review, top-10 of teachers/students/politicians//lawyers who are active users on edu/gov sites and reach out to them.

And the most effective method (IMO) which is usually neglected is to offer a scholarship. 200 bucks spent on one scholarship can provide you with several links from different edu sources.

Alright, once you’ve chosen the best method for your case, then you need to find high-authority donors. If you think all edu/gov sites are good, I’m sorry to say it’s not true. Most of them are abandoned and full of spam. That’s why you have to sort through the huge rubbish pile to find real gold.

I’m using Netpeak Checker to scrape SERP and find a list of sites and then check their stats with Ahrefs/Moz/Majestic/Alexa/Whois depending on what subscriptions I have.

The key thing is that I can easily check everything within one table, because this checker collects data from their APIs (you just need to enter your API token). I’ve bought it for 19 bucks a month, but it has 2 weeks free trial (you can find it here).

1. So start Netpeak Checker, go to the feature called SE scraper. Now you need to enter a list of queries (depending on your needs) using basic search operators:

• site:.edu “blog”
• site:.edu “forums”
• site:.edu inurl:blog “keyword”
• site:.edu "scholarships"
• site:.edu "scholarship list"
• site:.edu "keyword + scholarships"
• site:.edu "employee discounts"
• site:.edu "employee discounts & perks"
• site:.edu "student discounts"
• site:.edu keyword + inurl:resources
• site:.edu keyword + inurl:links

And many different variations of such queries. You can find lots of other examples through the web.

2. Set custom settings. I disable scraping of snippets and set the number of results I want.

3. The other key thing is to use proxies unless you want to solve CAPTCHA (you can also use CAPTCHA auto-solving service, didn’t try it myself though). If you don’t have proxies then set less number of threads, but I’d recommend buying some.

4. Start scraping. When it’s done, click Transfer URLs.

5. Now set the parameters you want to check the found pages for. As I said, you can use different scores of Ahrefs/Moz/Majestic/Alexa/Whois. I usually check DA from Moz, TF and CF by Majestic (I know they are quite outdated but still), Creation day by Whois, Last crawled by Wayback Machine, indexation in Google and probably something else I can’t remember.

6. Now filter the results just by clicking on a certain column or using custom rules.

Here you go! I might have missed something, but I hope you got the idea. By the way, I use this method to find donors in almost all my linkbuilding techniques. Feel free to ask me anything.

 

[tigerand7]

Thank you for sharing with us.

 

[bobojonathan]

Great share buddy. Do you pay $200 to each donor?

 

[CretON]

thanks bro !! you very help me !! :*

 

[gregz06]

Great share buddy. Do you pay $200 to each donor?

Nah, the thing is that you create a 200$ scholarship and offer it to different institutions, so you spend 200$ and get links from several organisations.

 

[jamie3000]

Nice guide, keep in mind some high profile websites got slapped for scholarship link building recently so use it as part of a balanced backlink diet!

 

[gregz06]

Nice guide, keep in mind some high profile websites got slapped for scholarship link building recently so use it as part of a balanced backlink diet!

Thanks! Haven't heard about it, could you drop any source to read from?

 

[Kosta Bankovski]

By the way, you can scrape emails from that pages in the main window of the tool. In 'On-Page' group you have appropriate parameter to get them

 

[Unreliable Witness]

From experience with a couple of sites, scholarship links don't have a particularly large impact any more. It is already an over-saturated method.

It might be that Google recognises scholarship related links and actively downgrades them, or it might be that pages that list scholarships have so many links on them that a single link doesn't pass much juice.

Engaging with staff or students would be a far better use of time.

I've approached student clubs and societies and clubs and sponsored them (or an event they're holding). You could also sponsor prominent committee members within student clubs. Just make sure that recognition on the club's website is part of the deal.

Writing for their magazines, websites or about staff members might also work.

Whatever you do, you need to keep it relevant. The topic of the page you're listed on has to be relevant to the page on your site it links to.

 

[gregz06]

From experience with a couple of sites, scholarship links don't have a particularly large impact any more. It is already an over-saturated method.

It might be that Google recognises scholarship related links and actively downgrades them, or it might be that pages that list scholarships have so many links on them that a single link doesn't pass much juice.

Engaging with staff or students would be a far better use of time.

I've approached student clubs and societies and clubs and sponsored them (or an event they're holding). You could also sponsor prominent committee members within student clubs. Just make sure that recognition on the club's website is part of the deal.

Writing for their magazines, websites or about staff members might also work.

Whatever you do, you need to keep it relevant. The topic of the page you're listed on has to be relevant to the page on your site it links to.

Yeah, scholarships are definitely not that effective as they used to be, but the last time I used them (3 months ago) they did a good job. Definitely going to try student clubs, thanks for the idea!

 

[fizakhan1]

Can't you share the list? Here.

 

[gregz06]

Can't you share the list? Here.

Don't have such list, and I'd not recommend using websites from random lists through the web (obviously no one will share good ones they use). If you want to benefit from edu/gov backlinks, you better find them yourself and make your own list. By the way, I usually use local edu/gov websites, so they probably won't be useful for you.

 

[gregz06]

Found a list of discounts pages on my gdrive, might be useful - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1u6b3TMNmgeDi4Wv0U_RzUYBx6E3fhJiN9OuY1-a_Ank/edit#gid=0

 

[gregz06]

Another great tip is to search for local institutions. For example, site:.edu employee discounts Orlando Florida. It allows you to find less spammed organizations, as most webmasters search using the same queries, most organizations from the top of the SERP are overwhelmed with offers.

Also, the main thing to remember is that you should use edu/gov links as a part of your regular backlinking campaign unless you want to waste your time and money.