If you are able to learn where and how you can get EDU backlinks for your websites then you have taken a massive step in the right direction. Two of the main reasons are:
- EDU backlinks are much harder to get than other links and are seen as a lot more trustworthy, and
- a backlink from a site which is EDU will always trump a non EDU site.
Learning how to find and utilize EDU sites for backlinks will help you dominate the search engines for you chosen keywords much more easily. Google, Bing and the other search engines love EDU backlinks.
How To find EDU Backlinks Using Google Tools
If you want EDU backlinks for your sites you first of all need to be able to find EDU sites. Google has everything you need and will help you in your search for these juicy backlinks. What you need to do is use search queries with Google’s Search bar.
What am I talking about? You simply need to use some special, but easy to use, codes when you search which tells Google that you are looking for edu sites.
An example is this:
site:.edu
This will return sites that have only “.edu” as their extension. This doesn’t get us what we need, merely a load of sites with the edu on the end, but does not mean that we are able to get a backlink from these sites. So what we actually need to search for is edu sites which have blogs, allow your to create wikipages and have user registration. This is how you find these sites:
site:.edu “blog”
site:.edu “log in / create account”
Site:.edu “mediaWiki”
The above are just a few of the ways you can do this but to keep it simple we will stick with those for now.
Registering Accounts
Once you have finished searching and have found some sites you will need to get your backlinks from them. Not all of these sites will allow you to create backlinks so the easiest way to find out is to check if these sites allow you to:
- Register an account.
- Create a wiki page
- Comment on the blog posts
In general if they allow or require you to register then you will be able to get your backlinks on their site.
How to get EDU backlinks and not have them removed
Often if you are not careful your wiki pages will be removed almost immediately after being created. The reason being that many of these sites are very strictly moderated. If you are seen to provide irrelevant comments or articles purely for the purpose of creating a backlink to your site you are likely to be banned from the site completely.
The best way to avoid this is to do a bit of research into the topic which is being covered by the edu site. Go to EzineArticles.com and look for a relevant article and paste it into the WikiPage that you create. Always give credit to the original author at the end and include his/her signature (you can find this at the bottom of the article).
So how do you get your juicy edu backlink? Simply place a foot note at the end f the page saying something along the lines of ……”This page was created by……” and place your link.
So to summarize
- Find an edu Blog or WikiPage where you can create an account.
- Get a relevant article from EzineArticles.com
- Post the article and give credit where it is due
- End the article with your website link
More Free Edu Backlinks
I have put together a short appetizer list, with explanations of how to add your links, of EDU sites that are ranking from PR1 - PR9! This list is all done manually and it will give you an insight as to how much work some backlink services go through to add your link to forum profiles/blog posts/sites.
1. http://tecto.gps.caltech.edu/forum/register.php - PR6, 1 website
- Register
- Profile
- Identity
- Fill in the Website
- Go back to profile page, it will show up 5 minutes later, and ping it.
2. http://forums.saa.edu/register.php - PR1, 4 signature websites and 1 profile website
- Register
- Get password from email
- Profile
- Personality 4 Signature backlinks, bbc style backlinks
- Person 1 other website backlink
- Logout
- User List
- Search for your User
- Get the profile link and ping it
3. http://web.utk.edu/~dst/guestbook/index.php - PR5, 1 website guestbook signing
4. http://celebrating125years.stedwards.edu/connect/guestbook/ - PR3, multiple websites guestbook signing
5. http://animage.ucsd.edu/forum/register.php - PR8, 3 signature websites and 1 profile website
- Register
- Get password from email
- Click on your username
- Edit
- Signature and Website
- Go back to the forum and post to show signature, get the URL and ping it.
6. http://bcnm-dev.berkeley.edu/wp-login.php?action=register - PR9, 1 profile website
- Register on WordPress
- Get password from email
- Add web site
- At the bottom, make Web Site public
7. http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?action=register - PR6, 4 signature and 1 profile website
- Register
- Get password from email
- Profile
- Signature and Website Title/URL
- Post on a riddle
- Ping your thread page with your post on it.
PS: Do check out this post on how to check backlinks.
This post is part of the Blogging Tips 101 Contest. Please help Matt win the contest by promoting the post and leaving comments that generate discussion.
Matt Kerr is the Co-Owner of The Guru Training Academy. He teaches newcomers to the IM business how to create WordPress websites & develop these sites into long lasting and successful businesses. We use a combination of video & text/picture tutorials and one to one live mentoring. Visit Guru Training Academy!
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EDU backlinks seem interesting. The list of EDU sites listed here are also worth a try. Thanks for sharing them!
Spatch Merlin
From Your How to Blog Guide
Hi Spatch,
If you would like some more edu sites i have a mini list of 25 which you are welcome to have. Just let me know and i can zap them over
You are welcome Spatch. Adapt the method to find GOV links as well
Matt says
IT’s our pleasure to share this. I always found the .EDU link side of thing a bit daunting when i first started out. The hope here is to dispel some of the mis conceptions that only the experts can source decent EDU backlinks. Hopefully this will save some people some money as well.
Hi Matt,
Wow what a great explanation on getting .edu back links. I will try your ideas. You have gone into the why behind your explanations……I like that!
-Stephen
Matt says
Glad you liked it Stephen. This is my first guest post here so happy it going down well:)
Great, I like the post very much.
i never went out for .edu links, but now thinks its time to be
Matt Kerr says
Thanks Pradosh2. Agreed! If you have not yet got any edu backlinks i would start right away. It will give you an edge that many others don’t have.
This was a great and informative post.
I have a few edu backlinks from comments but I really like the sound of using a wiki page. I’m guessing that if approved it’s a more valuable and permanent link.
Matt Kerr says
When using a wiki page you also have the potential to generate targetted traffic to your site/blog as well so don’t forget to make sure your on page SEO is upto scratch and that your post has enough value that some people may want to follow your links.
Thank’s for the extra tips Matt.
I must admit, I would be inclined to seek out a good site, write something of my own and optimise it as a matter of course.
I’m not one to take short cuts for a quick link. There’s so much more to be gained from giving value and doing things well.
I feel the same about blogging and commenting. So many people trying to find shortcuts for a quick link and yet they miss out on the huge benefits of actually engaging with other bloggers.
I agree with you 95%. I do not go for quick fixes. However if there is a tool in the box which can help you do the job better then it’s a good idea to use it a little.
EDU links should not be the backbone to your backlinking strategy but even having one when the competition has none can give you the extra edge.
I agree with you. Pointless links on forums only used to try and fool Google are not a productive activity. I don’t want to spend my time that way. Engaging with real bloggers with thoughtful comments is much better.
Thanks for this but I have a question - the sites you mentioned, are they do follow? I also wasn’t sure what you meant when you say “ping it”.
Matt Kerr says
They are mixed i believe. That’s if you are talking about the samples i supplied. It’s good have a mixture of do and no follow as it keeps the overall links looking more natural to the big G.
When i say “ping” i mean use a service like Pingoat, Pingler or Ping-o-matic. These services notify major blog systems that there is new content on your site and will get the google bots to your sites faster. Which in turn gets the backlinks indexed more quickly.
You can also “tweet” or “facebook share” as these sites are crawled very regularly by the bots.
Great article again Jane - of course, folks can take it one step further and write a good entry for the wiki themselves which gives them the bonus of unique content. Or perhaps they could link to an Ezine/similar article they’ve written which contains links to their site, the SEO juice isn’t as good, but it could reduce the risk of the link being removed.
Something else which I plan on trying is to talk to your (former) education institution. Offer to write a “what I did after I graduated/left” article for them explaining what you do now and why, what you learnt while you were studying that made this possible, etc.
Of course, this will be a lot harder for some of you than others, but it’s worth spending a minute to send an email and find out!
Matt Kerr says
“Great article Jane” ?
I do agree though. The more value you add the more value you get in return. Just look at the guest posts on this blog and the amount of interest they get.
Nice tips, however it is worth noting that some .edu sites, in an attempt to fight spam, will only accept registrations with university emails (time to hire some student for a part-time job eh?)
Matt Kerr says
Very true. You will be aware of this early on though so should not lose much time when you do come across sites like that.
There are also a lot of edu sites so i doubt you will have any problems finding enough to get started.
Some people say that .edus are about to lose their momentum because so many people have caught on to the idea now.
By the way on .edu website No. 7 what do you mean by ‘Post on a Riddle’?
Matt Kerr says
If you take a look at the site you will notice at the top of the screen you will see a “riddles site” and a “maths site” you can post riddles and then people try to answer them. Not really my thing but i guess it gets a convo started.
This is really a nice list of edu sites but yes indeed, it is not an easy task to get a backlink from them. Some time back I tried that myself but in the absence of any fruitful achievements, dropped plan about creating a .edu backlink. Nevertheness, thanx for putting such a great deal of effort in finding and compiling this list.
Matt Kerr says
My pleasure. Maybe it’s time to revisit the idea. Never too late & might have better results this time.
Yes absolutely, Matt. Even I thought its a time to revisit and try once again. Thanx once again.
There are many ways to get backlinks. I think I’m not suit the way above, but comments blogs are my favourite and as well to avoid spammers.
Matt Kerr says
Each to their own
There are many people who stick to just one method for backlinking. I would always suggest that you try and get links from at least 2-3 different sources to add variety though.
Wow Thanks MattKerr. I have a huge list of Edu Sites but i never tried this. But i would like to signup for all edu sites. Thanks for sharing with us. Hope it will be helpful for Next PR.
Matt Kerr says
It’s always a pleasure to share tips Amit.
Matt,
One of the first things I learned while studying SEO and backlinking is as a blogger you want those links to .edu. I honestly thought, “well that is nearly impossible so why bother”.
You have given me hope. I’m going to try your technique and see what comes from it.
Thx
~Allie
Matt Kerr says
Very happy to have helped.
Trying to figure out what i make my next guest post about
Matt,
I write GP’s two ways. I get inspiration from what I already know and write one then tailor it to the host’s blog. Or I decide I want to GP somewhere then write a post that compliments that blog. They both do the same thing, just different process.
~Allie
One of the best way to get links from the edu sites to write the research based guest post. I think by do so, you can get links from many of edu sites.
Matt Kerr says
You are exactly right. The more value your offer the more likely the post will be approved and you will actually get some traffic rather than just a decent backlink.
It’s worth investing the extra time. However make sure that if you do invest the time that you do so on one of the more active site/wiki/blogs so to maximize your results.
Very nice article! I already forgot .edu backlinks when i found out about commentluv! LOL.. Thanks for reminding me.. Keep it up..
Matt Kerr says
Always very happy to help Rick!
Neat trick, Jane, As a person who has learned a lot about SEO. I think this way does work well. But note, google lists outdated blogs mostly.
Matt Kerr says
Thanks for the compliment
Agreed! Many of these sites/blogs will be the older ones. That does not mean they have less authority though. In many cases it’s a good thing as older sites gain authority with time and the natural backlinks they build increasing their PR.
Thank you very much for the listing. Everyone knows that Google rewards a special way links from websites. Edu.I think we should not only leave our firm and we only try to spam. We must build on that record and create something useful for content that we evaluate on the web.So get more benefit from the backlink. Edu.
Matt Kerr says
Hi Alfonso,
I’m not sure i fully understand your post. Especially this part……..”I think we should not only leave our firm and we only try to spam.”
Maybe you could rephrase and we could better understand to reply.
Hey, Matt! I didn’t know how useful .edu can be. That’s awesome information. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Matt Kerr says
You are more than welcome Marian. Its always good to share any tips
Great share Matt…
An edu backlink can really prove useful to gain good rankings. Also I’d like to thank you for the list of free .edu forums
Matt Kerr says
You are welcome Salman!
Looks like you have a good blog with some very technical posts. Have to admit my eyes were drawn to the Agoda advert on the side “Maldives Hotels” I am heading there in June for a week so clicked through. Perfect timing for us both
Matt Kerr says
No problem at all. Even with a tutorial in front of you it can be a bit daunting which is why i thought it might be helpful for a few expamples of what to do once you have found a site.
.edu sites is always helpful to promote a website for better rank. I have not read any article written deeply on .edu sites. This post gives informative information on .edu sites. Thanks for share
Matt Kerr says
Always a pleasure to spread the Link Juice Love!
Thanks for sharing this useful method! The list of EDU sites listed here are also worth a try.
Matt Kerr says
They are indeed. I included them just to give you guys a few which you could use right away.
It is of course a very good idea to build up a small list of fresh ones. If you can find a few which not many people comment on all the better as the strength of your links will be less diluted.
This is what I call “Real Stuff” every word of it is important for a newbie blogger…
Matt Kerr says
Thanks for the kind words Bharat!
You look very young in your pic
Nice write-up. Really informative. I will try and follow these tips to get a backlink from one .edu site atleast. Are you sure about the PR of the sites? I find some of the Page Rank different.
Matt Kerr says
Hi Shree,
To be honest the sites PR’s could have changed since i last checked. The list has been sat on a word doc for a while now. Easiest way to check for free and quickly is to use:
http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
Thanks for sharing the wonderful info especially the short appetizer list, will help a lot.
Matt Kerr says
My pleasure! The idea was to save you guys little time with the first few EDU site but i would suggest that everyone try to build themselves a small list of maybe 50 sites over time and keep them on file for easy access.
Thanks a lot Matt. I haven’t built any .EDU backlinks yet, your list will will be a good start for me.
Matt Kerr says
It’s never too late to start and always a good idea to include some edu in your backlinking campaigns. Always best to mix up types of links.
MattKerr i have a question for you. Is this a white hat SEO technique or Black hat SEO technique.
Matt Kerr says
This is white hat Mohsin. The difference btween the two is:
White Hat: The legitimate practice which is accepted by the search engines, Digg, Reddit, Twitter and other social networks. Guest Blogging, Commenting, forum posting and article marketing to name few. I will mention directory submission but only last as personally I believe that most directories have been spammed and offer very low quality backlinks as a result of this.
Blackhat: Hated by the SE and penalized when caught. blackhats often use sneaky techniques like dummy pages filled with fake links to fool search engines into thinking that sites are popular. Auto backlink creation tools which create 1000′s of links in seconds. Link building which cannot possibly be manually built by humans.
These are only very brief overviews of black and white hat but should be able to give you a general idea. Summarize it like this…………if you couldn’t do it in a day or are trying to manipulate the system then it’s likely considered Black Hat.
Astarte WebSols says
I feel this is the best way you can get .edu links otherwise its not that easy to get .edu backlinks.As far as SEO is concerned .edu backlinks adds lot to your site.
Matt Kerr says
There are people offering backlinking services for EDU links but their source is what worries me. Unless you check beforehand you never know if they will be using honest techniques or not and the services are often very expensive.
This is another reason i first did research to find the easiest way to find and build these backlinks.
Anthony Merrigan says
Interesting read, thanks and hey might as well post my backlink here as well…
Matt Kerr says
Sharing is caring as they say Anthony
If you have something to help people share it. It’s nice when you see how many to people find your post useful as well.
Hi Matt, this is an awesome strategy to get backlink from edu sites within minutes, I will try this out if you find any other edu sites please update here..
Matt Kerr says
When i come across more I will for sure. I already have a list of sites which i use and i share with our members so right now no plans to search anymore.
Also very busy teaching our members so even making my next guest post here has had to be delayed a bit.
So I’ve heard about the edu backlinks from my friends. But we all just know a little about it. Thanks for sharing this. It’s really helping us a lot by providing great informations. Thanks a lot!!
Matt Kerr says
My pleasure Andrew. Glad to have been able to help you guys a little.
This list will surely help my backlink strategy. I am now building some list of edu sites and hopefully it will make my site dominate more on google. Thanks for the list
Matt Kerr says
Hi chanikacha,
Very happy to have helped. If you do need more help feel free to let me know and i am more than happy to hash out some more ideas with you
abacus says
Thanks a lot for these good links. I hope they will affect as soon as possible
Matt Kerr says
You are welcome Abacus. I hope you get some good link juice using this method
abacus says
Hi Matt,
thanks for welcome. gave you a backlink @http://www.solrobots.de/partnerlinks/
Best regards from germany
Ralf
I was unaware of this, but now I understand the importance of edu backlinks. Thanks for telling us such a useful knowledge.
Matt Kerr says
You are very welcome Kundan! It’s always a good feeling when you get positive feedback! Thanks
Thanks a lot for for sharing good links.Great and informative post.It is very helpful links.
Matt Kerr says
My pleasure Reich! Do you plan to impliment any of the above info?
Matt, I agree that EDU links are loved by google and you have made the task easy by providing some tips for finding them. Excellent post and I have bookmarked it for my future reference.
Matt Kerr says
No problem.
Have you thought about signing up to become an Amazon Associate? If you did so you could add a few links to your site and possible pickup a few Samsung tablet sales and make a few extra $.
I always am looking for a post on an edu blog, which accepts commands, which has to do with one of the subjects I am writing about. Well, I not always find one.
Sorry but i don’t think there is anything you can do at search level to determine that. The search function just isn’t powerful enough and i expect on most sites you need to register before you are able to determine this yourself.
Very informative post Matt, it does seem a little bothersome to get these back-links but I do understand the power behind them, thanks.
Dave
Believe me if it wasn’t worth the effort nobody would bother because yes i agreed it is a pain in the backside.
It’s a good thing that just a few of these makes a big difference
Very informative Radu. I was not aware of EDU backlinks but will start to look for them. Thanks for sharing.
My Pleasure Kent. Who is Radu? lol
G says
This is the best information I have found for getting edu backlinks.
thanks
Happy to have been able to help!
Erni says
Hi MR. Guru, (M)
Nice post/Blog, I’m on learn SEO/IM, thanks for sharing.Thanks ya, Erni
Lol thanks for the title Erni
If you need more help you are more than welcome to drop by our site.
Thank you for going in such great detail of the Why & How of these back links are beneficial. Some of those .edu sites usually seem a little out of my league, I am just a simple guy…lol
Thank you for the insight and sharing of your post Matt!
No problem Bryan. I have recently built up a new list of EDU sites if you would like to save a bit more time.
If you or anyone else wants a free no obligation list of 25 .EDU sites you can comment on, all PR 4-6 please send an email to
[email protected]
EDU backlinks are hard to come by. It takes too much time to search for them, so I just outsource to get them. Easy, quick, and relatively cheap. I guess I\’m too lazy.
Thats part of the reason i put out a mini list and also this tutorial. Also as i noted to help out a little more i have assembled a free list of another 25 EDU. Just let me know. Why spend money when you don’t need to?
Amit says
thanks for this great information..In how much time my links will be visible in Webmaster Tools??
It’s very hard to say really. If you ping the page on which your backlink has been created that will help. You can also tweet the page url.
If you leave it to google’s natural course there is no way whatsoever of knowing. 2-6 weeks would be an estimate. If you tweet or ping maybe less than a week. But even if it has been idexed there is no guarantee that it will show up in webmaster tools right away.
Rikon Rahman says
Very useful post for them, who want to create .edu backlinks. I have learned a lot of experience for creating baclinks from this post.
Very happy to have helped Rikon.
I will be posting another tutorial soon on how to identify “do follow” sites.
Christy says
Great sharring and I will try to post some comment in it. I hope by following your method, I will be at least get some link back to my my site. Thanks.
My pleasure Christy.
Make sure you don’t over do it though. I would suggest not creating any more than maybe 1-2 links a day and only for a few days then take a break and continue later.
Too many EDU links at once may seem unnatural.
Great information on getting edu backlinks, I will definitely try this. Thanks for the list of sites aswell!
You are welcome Adam. Don’t over do it though. Keep it to just a handful to keep it looking more natural.
It’s also worth checking the Page Rank of the sites you find using free sites like http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
The higher the page rank the better
Matt,
Great info, I’ve spent nearly half an hour and registered all these .edu sites. Thanking you.
You are very welcome Naveen. Happy to have helped
Thanks for writing this.
It’s very helpful.
i’m just wondering , how people do the service about create 1000 .edu backlink just in 3 days on fiverr. what software they use?
Are you asking because you want to use these methods or because you want to know how to avoid them?
I would advise the latter dediamirul. The reason being, especially with the changes of the last few weeks, that it is most certainly not natural to have 100 EDU links created in the space of days. Hence you would be asking for a slap down from the big G.
The only way this would be safely possible to do would be through a few of the edu forums, but even then it’s too many too fast.
Stick to no more than 1-10 per week, to be perfectly honest i usually stick 1-3 per week max myself. However if you would like a list of pre-researched sites to save you time visit the site this reply is linked to and drop me a note using the “contact us” page and i will reply with a list.
If you do though do me a quick favor and hit a few social share buttons while in there
Thanks. I registered all of sites.
Happy to help Ryan. I’m thinking of what to next write about. Any suggestions?
Thanks Matt for sharing the insider tricks of finding edu sites. No I am going to join with the sites you mentioned above.
Thanks again and have a nice day brother,
Abhijit
Your welcome Abhijit. Happy to have helped.
You can covert these same methods to find .gov as well
ubtav says
Excellent information. This is very helpful to all of us looking for quality backlinks. Share more and more useful tips like this..
Thanks for the positive feedback. You can adapt the EDU method to GOV as well.
I have done another post on this blog about do and no follow links which you might like.
Matt
David B. says
Excellent article. I appreciate you taking the time to create a step by step for the .EDU sites. I am just getting started in SEO and this article has helped me out quite a bit to understand more. I still have a long road ahead of me but with each new bit of information I find; it will only help to reach my goals. Thank you for the article.
It’s my pleasure to share EDU backlink tips David. If you want more hands on help feel free to drop over to my site where we help people with all steps of website creation, on and off page.
This is very helpfull guide For Beginners! Also there is a powerfull softwares that will find you lot of Edu,gov and Wiki Backlink sites!
I don’t want to share here because I am not spammer! Just make some research and you will find them! We have to make our work more easier!
Thanks!
You have to be very careful with software for any backlinks. The quality of comments are usually very poor and the stick rate of the backlinks low. Part of the problem being that lots of other people draw from the same list of sites.
Shaun says
Great tips on .edu, have followed your sample links, and it does take a lot of work. Thanks for putting me on the right track though dude!
You are welcome Sean. I hope it helps give you a boost in rankings
Mark Tempak says
Great article, very useful and easy to follow instructions. How comes I have only found it now after everybody else.
Thanks very much for giving clear directions on how to obtain those .edu links.
Don’t worry about the main list Mark. use the method to find a few of your own with low OBL and keep them to yourself
Steven says
Thanks for sharing - useful links and ideas.
You are welcome. It’s always nice to get positive feedback
How important are edu links? Have a great day on purpose!
Suzy Matts says
Thank you for edu backlinks. I liked your blogs they are worth reading. It gives lot of info.
Keep up the good work
Great stuff you got here. I would like ot point out that you need to be careful and distinguish between te different types of edu backlinks. There are some EDU WIKIs that people are mistaking for EDU Blogs. Wikis are a lot easier to get and post on, but most are no-follow and the link juice from them is much lesser. Also, the Edu profile links can get you in trouble if you overdo them after penguin. So, use them to link to tiered pages and mix them up. Make sure you build a variety of links and not too many of just one type.. that is key… and of course go SLOW AND STEADY. It workes much better than fast posting.
Odelon Alpindo says
Great Write up! that’s a great help because these links can provide a great back up to our websites. Thank you!
Getting .Edu backlinks are very interesting. This article is very useful and more understandable for me.Thanks Matt for sharing your wonderful idea and useful links.
fotis parovkas says
The idea is nice, clear and simple to follow, but for some reason I’m unable to get any .edu backlinks even after a few months trying. I was on some .edu blogs that have hundreds of comments (and I have confirmed with majesticseo and others that those websites give actual backlinks) yet I have not seen any of them in our domain. What could possibly go wrong?
Edu backlinks will get your website indexed by search engines really fast. It is not easy to get Edu or Gov backlinks. Edu and Gov backlinks will help you to get a stronger position in search engines, which will lead to a major increase in your website traffic.
Liza Jones says
I want to thanks for the efforts you have put in composing this blog post. I am hoping the same top-quality blog post from you in the upcoming as well. In fact your creative writing abilities has inspired me to get my own blog now. Truly the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a good example of it.
Zumba Fraserburgh says
Nice article, I was just wondering whether this method (getting .edu backlinks thru search engines) still works. I mean - if there is lots of people searching for blogs to comment on, and then there is thousands of comments, the site would be really slow thus backlinks would require months to get indexed?