Using Google To Find Link Opportunities

I use Google to help me find a whole variety of links – Blog comments, Forum discussions and Website directories to name a few. These sorts of links are easily found if you know a few tricks. One of my tricks is using fishforlinks.com.

Fish For Links is a brilliantly simple site that allows you to search Google using a set of predefined queries. All you do is enter your keyword and choose the type of links you want to search for. You can search for blog comments on WordPress, BlogEngine & ExpressionEngine, as well as Squidoo, directory and forum links. An example of one the searches Fish For Links performs would be:

site:.edu inurl:blog “post comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “Your Keyword”

This above search will find WordPress blogs that allow comments, will search based on a specific keyword, and is on a .edu site. If you don’t know, relevant backlinks from education sites can give your site a big boost in the search engines.

This is one of my favourite ways of getting a quick link whenever you have a spare few minutes. Some of the searches are better than others and sometimes you’ll have to broaden your search term if your not getting any results. You should also remember that when posting links you should always post ethically – never spam!

There is a set of rules that I have when getting back-links from forums, blogs, and directories:

(1) When Blog Commenting always read the post and always think of something helpful, positive or interesting to say. Remember that a lot of the time your comment will have to be moderated so you’ll just be wasting your time if you post a poor comment.

(2) When Posting In Forums use the same approach. Never just post your link and never just write something like ‘Very interesting, you should check out…’. Add value to the thread and only place a link if its relevant. Forum posting is a touchy subject and a lot of the time your links may be removed. That being said, when it’s done right it does pay off as Forum links can sometimes bring you a lot traffic as well as the link juice. Also utilize your forum profile to drop your website link. This is a good way to get a backlink.

(3)When submitting to Website Directories avoid reciprocal links! I find the sort of niche directories you need are sometimes hard to find, I also find it hard to believe the amount of reciprocal link offers there still are on the net. When searching for directories I sometimes add a few extra parameters to the search query. Remember you can use the ‘-’ (minus) symbol to add a keyword that you don’t want to appear on the page. I like to take advantage of that by adding words like:

- reciprocal
- exchange

An example of a directory search query would be (more on Fish For Links):

“Your Keyword” intitle:add site -reciprocal -exchange