17 Untapped Backlink Sources

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I recently posted this at Backlinko.com but wanted to share a short and sweet version with my fellow Warriors:

1. Submit to Audio Sharing Sites

SEO peeps NEVER use audio sharing sites...which is CRAZY because they're ridiculously easy to get links from.

And make no mistake: these audio sharing sites are PR powerhouses and can move your site in the SERPs.

All you need to do is create a piece of audio (preferably music) and upload it to these sites, which give you a nice dofollow link in exchange:
Reverbnation.com (PR6)
BandCamp.com (PR7)
Sutros.com (PR5)
MobyPicture.com (PR5)

Even if you have as much music talent as MC Hammer you can still take advantage of this technique.

Just hit 'record' on your laptop mic and belt out Radiohead covers or beatbox like you do in your car.

Just record something, upload it and grab your authority links.

2. Buy Expired Domains at GoDaddy Auctions, SnapNames or NameJet.

This technique is so powerful and seldom-used I was a little bit reluctant to put it on this list.

If you’re buying a new domain every time you launch a site you’re leaving A LOT of link juice in the table and making your life A LOT harder than it has to be.

Before I launch a site, I ALWAYS head over to GoDaddy auctions to see if I can grab an aged domain.

Even if I can’t find a domain in my niche, I buy an aged domain with quality links pointing to it. Then I 301 redirect it to my new site.

Let me tell you, that 301 alone often lands my site on the 2nd or 3rd page…before I’ve build a single link!

3. Donate to Charity
If the warm fuzzy feeling you get from donating isn’t enough, maybe a backlink will cajole your altruistic side.

There are A TON of dead broke PR6+ site owners that will gladly hand over a link in exchange for a few bucks. And these sites tend to have ridiculous link profiles.

You can find some on your own by using these nifty search strings:

“donate to us”
“contributors page”
“sponsors page”
allintitle: “contributors”
allintitle: “sponsors”

4. Build a Blog Network

A high quality blog network is one of the best SEO investments you can make: you’re in the driver’s seat and can funnel massive amounts of link juice wherever the heck you want.

Contrary to popular belief, building a blog network isn't that hard.

You just need to get good at buying expired domains. Oh, and and you’ll need some cash.

Obviously, you should do everything you can power to reduce your network’s footprint, including:
  • Private whois informtion
  • Different hosting plans (NOT different IPs…completely different hosting from different companies)
  • Different themes and designs
  • Different permalink structures
  • Different content management systems (Drupal, WordPress, Joomla etc.)
This way you won’t have to worry about waking up one morning and seeing your entire blog network deindexed.

5. Give Testimonials

Companies big and small LOVE to show off their customer testimonials. If you’re using a product or service that you love (or at least like), consider sending them a testimonial.

When you do, make sure to tell them that they can put it on their homepage or a testimonial page. To show that you’re a real person they’ll often put a link to your site for you…without you even having to ask.

Make no mistake, you can get some baller links from testimonials:

When I see an authority site with testimonial links I sometimes buy their product or service just to give a testimonial and get a link.

6. Fiverr Blog Links

It’s very fashionable to hate on Fiverr because 99% of their SEO gigs are absolute garbage.

But the 1% that most people ignore are solid gold bullion.

The key is knowing how to find the 1%.

When I’m shopping for backlinks at Fiverr I’m hunting for ONE specific type of gig: a webmaster who is selling a contextual link on his site.

Here’s the link profile from a site I got a blog post link from the other day (PR4):

Not bad, eh?

And while this may seem like traditional guest posting, it’s a VERY different ballgame because:
  • You don’t have to follow any fascist "guest posting guidelines"
  • You can write content optimized around your keyword
  • You can drop links wherever and however you like
  • You usually get your content and link posted within a day or so
Luckily, finding these gigs is a cinch.

Just type these into Fiverr’s search field:
“I will post your content”
“guest post on my”
“I will post your article”

7. Directory Domination

I chuckle every time people claim that directories are dead.

In May 2012 Google deindexed a few hundred free directories. If directory links didn’t work then why would they deindex them?

Hint: they wouldn’t.

This matches my personal experience that links from the right directories can still do wonders for your site.

Here are some directories to consider getting a link from:

Free:

R-TT Directory

So Much

Ranking Directory

Directory World

Net Insert

All The Websites

MavicaNET

Paid:
Family Friendly Sites

Ask Bee

DirBull.com

Yahoo! Directory (expensive but worth it)

8. HARO

HARO (short for Help a Reporter Out) is one of best ways to get killer backlinks from authority news sites.

Here's how HARO works:
1. Sign Up To HARO as a source here.
2. You'll get three emails per day from reporters looking for sources.
3. Respond with your credentials and some helpful tips.


Don't sleep on HARO: major international media outlets like MSNBC.com and The Huffington Post use HARO to find sources for their articles.

9. .Edu Resource Links

Everyone knows that .edu links are the bomb.

But getting legit .edu links is damn near impossible for average Joe SEO...
...or is it?

If you have a legit looking site that's not monetized to death you can usually get a 1-2 .edu links just by asking around.

Most US universities have resource pages where they link to websites that they think are cool.

So if you had a website about guitars or music you could get a link from this site (in this case Cookman.edu) by emailing them and showing them your helpful resource.

Use these search strings to find them:
site:.edu "your niche"
site:.edu "your niche" + "resources"
site.edu: "your niche" + "links"
site.edu: "your niche" + "other sites"

Only 5-10% of them will actually post your link, but even a handful of these can make a HUGE difference in the SERPs.

10. Submit Your Site to Website Feedback Sites
There are a TON of sites that are designed to help you get feedback on your site's layout or conversion potential. Important for our purposes, all of them allow a dofollow link back to your site.

You can get a link like this from a site called ConceptFeedback.com.

As you can see, there's a nice dofollow link on the page.

To get a link from these sites all you need to do is submit your site with a little description of how you want to improve it.

Here are some Website Feedback Sites to get links from:
ConceptFeedback.com (PR5)
ABTests.com (PR5)
BounceApp.com (PR5)
SuggestionBox.com (PR4)

11. Find Expired Domains Using This Top Secret Method

If there's one skill SEOers need to start learning it's the art of grabbing expired domains.

Buying a domain from 10-years ago is like going back in time, hiring someone to make and promote a site...and then paying him $100 or less for his decade of toil.

In addition to the auction sites I've listed above, there's another way to find these little gems.

What you're doing is finding pages that:

a) have a long list of links to other sites and b) haven't been updated in a while.

If you can find a link to a site that's not registered anymore you can pick it up at GoDaddy or wherever for $10 or so. And the best part: no auctions!

And while it may not show any PR when you buy it, the PR WILL come back as soon as you host it and toss some content on it (assuming the links are still pointing to it).

The key here is finding those pages that have lots of links on them. There's no simple way of finding them, you just need to be creative.

Make sure to set the results so you only see a limited range of old sites (ie. between December 2004-December 2007).

This limits the results to pages that haven't been updated in a while.

Once you find a page that seems to be old and has a ton of outbound links, run a free program called Xenu Link Sleuth, which will bring up a list of the dead links on the page (404s).

Grab the list of dead links and pop them into a bulk domain name checker to see if any are available. If so, grab them and put some content on there.

This is a lot of work at first, but it takes much less time once you get the hang of it.

It's also a MUCH cheaper way to build a blog network than splurging on domain names at GoDaddy Auctions.

You can also just 301 the aged domain to your money site.

12. Submit Your Site to Blog Aggregators


How would you like a link from this site (PR8):


Yowza those are some crazy links.

That's Technorati.com, one of the top blog aggregators on the planet (blog aggregators are just sites that assemble blog content from around the web).

You can get a dofollow link on most blog aggregators for free:
Just submit your site, add come code to a post to confirm you're the owner and wait for someone from the aggregator to stop by and take a look at your site.

When they approve it you'll have your own page on the aggregator with a dofollow link to your site. Easy peasy.

In addition to Technorati (a must) here are some other blog aggregators to submit to:
Alltop.com (PR7)
Blogarama.com (PR6)
Liquida.com (PR5)

13. Find Guest Posting Gigs on Twitter

If there really is a hell, I'm convinced that stan makes tortured souls guest blog for all of eternity.

It can take hours just to find a handful of niche-specific sites that don't have a strict laundry list of guest blogger guidelines.

But there's an easier way. You can tap into the underutilized power of Twitter search to find sites that are posting guest posts on the reg.

You KNOW that the sites that have tweeted their guest posts in the last week must be posting on a regular basis (no annoying dead ends!).

Here are some search strings to use in Twitter search:
"your nice" + guest post
"your niche" + guest author
"your niche" + write for us
"your niche" + guest article
14. Scoop It
Scoop It is one of my absolute favorite ways of getting dozens of high PR links with a few minutes work.

Scoop It is basically a site where people aggregate their favorite content around the web into a magazine format.

Get this: lots of people's personal Scoop It pages are PR3 or higher.

To get people to post your stuff all you need to do is use Scoop It's built in suggestion feature.

Just search for a high PR Scoop It page and hit "suggest".

Just send the person a quick message and let them know about your content.
In my experience about 50% accept within a day --meaning dozens of authority links in about 15 minutes of "work".

15. Broken Link Building

This one seems a little strange -- and takes a bit of legwork -- but it's definitely worth the time and effort.

What we're doing is finding resource pages in our niche.

So if you were in the fitness niche you'd search in Google using these search strings:
"fitness" + "resource page"
"fitness" + "resources"
"fitness" + "recommended sites"
"fitness" + "links"

Now you COULD email them and just ask for a link. But I've found that the begging approach doesn't work very well.

A MUCH better method is to find broken links on these pages using the aforementioned Xenu Link Sleuth and "help" the webmaster by giving them a heads up about their dead links.

Here is an example email:

Hi (site owner name),
I was just browsing around your resources page, and among the lists of great resources, were some broken links.
Here's a few of them:
URL1
URL2
URL3
Oh, and I have a website, mysite.com, that also regularly posts quality content related to whatever. If you think so too, feel free to post a link to it on your resources page.
Either way I hope this helps and keep up the good work!
Thanks,
(Your Name)

16. Infographics

Almost everyone in SEO knows about infographics, but I'm absolutely flabbergasted at how few take advantage of this incredibly easy backlink strategy.

What trips people up is that they think...
... infographics are hard to make and expensive
AND
...they assume the infographic has to go viral for this technique to work
...both of which are DEAD WRONG.

Heck, you can get a halfway decent infographic made from someone on Odesk or Elance for less than $75.

In my experience, the IDEA is 10x more important than the design itself.

Be creative, make something unique and then hire someone on the cheap to make it DIY-style via Piktochart.

Once you have it ready, it's time to get the word out.

1. Your first step is to submit it to infographic sharing sites, like these:
Visual.ly (PR7)
DailyInfoGraphic.com (PR5)
AmazingInfoGraphics.com (PR4)
OmgInfoGraphics.com (PR3)

2. Once you've done that, it's time to reach out to bloggers in your niche and offer them the infographic as a guest post. To sweeten the deal, tell them that you'll write a unique description for their site.

I've literally gotten 100+ high PR links from related sites from a single quality infographic and this 1-2 punch.

17. Software Submissions

Submitting to software directories is an old school SEO tactic that works like gangbusters. Why?

Because most software submission sites have INSANE backlink profiles, like this (PR8):


The site's link profile you're looking at is CNET.com.

There are several other authority software sites you can submit to, including:
FileDudes.com (PR5)
DownLoadJunction.com (PR5)
SoftAward.com (PR4)
SoftTonic.com (PR6)

And the best part? You don't need to create an open source operating system to get your software (and link) on these software directories.

Most of these directory accept video game submissions. So head over to Sploder.com (free) and make an easy puzzle game in about 5-minutes. Then save it as an .exe or PAD file and start getting some of the best free backlinks in SEO.

Hope this helps you guys!
#search engine optimization #backlink #sources #untapped
  • Hmm good work. Thre are a few in there that I had not though of. Thx!
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Nice information. Thanks for sharing it with us.
  • Dude, very excellent post. !
  • Excellent guide! Thank you!
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    Twitter + Bitly is awesome for finding direct traffic numbers on relevant sites. You can get laser targeted traffic numbers in real time.

    These are the types of sites/pages you want links on, that way If the SERPs fluctuate, you still have existing laser targeted niche traffic to fall back on. You can double your traffic for the same money.
    1. search (keyword)
    2. (traffic volume)
    3. page
    4. for SEO/SERPs

    You can also use Twitter for keeping tabs on your competitions new keyword pages If they auto update when creating new blog post.
    • [1] reply
    • I didn't have enough coffee today because I don't quite get this.

      So what you're saying is you want to rank Twitter pages for certain keywords?
  • I have been on SEO forums for the past five years and have been soaking it all up. This has to one of the absolute best post and at least three that I did not know before so thanks a million.
  • This is an absolutely fabulous post... It could have been pdf'd up and sold as an ebook. Great share!
  • Thanks for the sharing so nice and so use full information
    • [1] reply
  • Thanks for the help and the links. I will check em out
  • Excellent information. Thanks for sharing and I am sure warriors will definitely benefit from this post.
  • Some very unique ways to build high quality backlinks which will definitely increase the SERP of your site.
  • Some very nice tips. About the last tip - software submission links. These links are awesome. I have been doing software submissions from nearly 2 years and was earlier providing a service for that. I had done these submissions for lots of clients and majority of them had nice ranking improvements.
  • You have spent so much time searching for this sources of links and then writing this article. Thank you very much for this guide, it will be very helpful for me!
  • thanks for sharing very great method to get backlinks
  • Good share. About Godaddy Auctions, instead of 301 redirect, you could develop this new authority domain on same niche and host it at another place (with different Class C IP) and then create backlinks to original site. This is a simple and cheap way to generate relevant back links with high PR.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, I've done that as well. It works!
  • The tips are really good. I wonder if Buying an Expired Domains really helps a lot. I would like to know more about it, as I'm planning to buy a domain.
    • [1] reply
    • It does help...but you need to be willing to spend $200+ on a domain with a solid link profile.
      • [1] reply
  • great share... will try it out... thanks...
    • [1] reply
    • Awesome information Backlinko. Best share about finding good Fiverr gig as well. Thank you very much for the share.
  • Wow, amazing list/guide. Really nice work here.
  • I'm on a concept review website right now - Concept Feedback | Get Expert Website Feedback and Increase Conversions

    It's the one you suggested in the post. But looking at a review page I can see it has no pagerank? Am I doing something wrong?
    • [2] replies
    • Google is probably treating it as a supplemental result - indexed but not ranked.
    • Remember that Google only updates PR every 3 months. Any new review pages automatically have PR n/a or 0 until the next update.
  • You have shared some useful information with us.
    I'll check your site. Personally thanks for your information.
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  • You got a nice list of methods there mate, I'm sure many can find use of it. Props to you.
  • Your 2nd tip is golden. I have never tried buying aged expiring domains. Should do from now on.
  • Good set of backlinking methods. Most of them are new to me. Thanks
  • Great info! You reminded me of one very important method I had forgotten about: software links. Had always heard of people getting better results in SERPS using this method.

    And if I may, I'd like to add another method of obtaining backlinks (it's becoming more popular, but still greatly overlooked): Pinterest.

    Just research your niche in Google and you should find a good number of Pinterest user boards related to your niche in the results. Contact the users of these boards and ask nicely for a pin (you may want to offer something in return).

    Be sure you only submit photos from your site that are most relevant to the boards you have found (for pinning), as Pinterest has cracked down greatly on what it considers to be spam.

    Anyway, your URL will be automatically included in each pin, giving you nice links from a high PR site and some targeted traffic as well.

    The best part is getting repins from each pin, whereby other Pinterest users will add your pinned photo/link to their own boards. This can spread like wildfire if you originally hit some of the more popular boards in your niche.

    I tried this exact method a few months ago with one popular board in my niche and received over 35 repins (I had a few pics on that particular board).

    Hope that helps...
    • [1] reply
    • This is good advice. Thanks for sharing!

      Pinterest is kind of a hybrid backlink/social signal.
  • Pretty legit, good work.
  • NICE SHARE! Thanks a lot!
  • pinterest links seem to be nofollow though. not too sure how useful those would be, it probably has more benefit to driving targeted traffic than anything backlink-related.
  • Regarding infographics, there's a new section on Guest blogging: Looking for guest bloggers or guest post? Join MyBlogGuest! to upload your infographics so other bloggers can use it. Very cool, imo.
  • Broken Links and photo sharing site is amazing strategy which i never thought off. Thanks you for sharing us.
  • This is definitely worth a try....awesome piece, i can't believe i have overlooked all these traffic sources..
  • Great post, explosive information!
  • My first post here but just thought I'd weigh in to show my gratitude for this epic piece! Thanks for sharing
  • Thank you for your post. All the suggestions are very practical and creative. Also, I stopped looking into directory links, but I get it now. Thanks again.
  • This list is gold for me thank you
  • Thanks for sharing these wonderful ideas. I would like to know more about Audio sharing. Can I use it for my Health and Beauty related site. Also if you know anything more about any audio sites that I can use for my Health site.
  • execellent post!!!
    soundsharing sites can be used to get quality backlinks.
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    Very nice creative list, one of the best posts ever on this forum!
  • Thank you for excellent post.
  • Smart List.

    I'll pitch in one too:

    Do a twitter search filter for:

    "yourkeyword + wordpress."

    You'll get fresh bloggers who just posted about your industry.

    Ask them if they'd like to be mentioned from your site... and all you want is to be mentioned in their blog.

    Since they JUST published the post... the are in edit mode. This is when they're most likely to say yes. http://sparkah.com/guerrilla-marketi...9-seo-secrets/ is my personal Google seo checklist.

    Also see our to 5 Google SEO Keyword Picking Strategies -- http://sparkah.com/guerrilla-marketi...your-keywords/
  • Definitely the best list I've seen on WF.

    You hear the same crap day in and day out and its a true breath of fresh air to read something like this.

    Thanks for taking the time!
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  • Very well described. I appreciate the way you combined all the stuff together
  • I would include submitting high quality Press Release articles to paid for distribution companies. This seems to really increase websites credibility with the search engines
  • Reverbnation is something I see people talking about now and again but I honestly have never even visited the site.
    Looks like quite a fun way to build links too! Thanks for the share!
  • Thanks very much!
  • Really some golden sources of quality backlinks. Thanks for this.
  • Nice information thanks for sharing.
  • At this point, I am really trying hard to get backlinks for my site from .edu sites. Your post was very much motivational but the one thing is always important "Steady work". It will take time to build traffic for a website. Never give up.
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  • @Backlinko

    Wow. Love that list. Nice thinking! And love your site - just downloaded that free pdf. But, I have to ask. If back links are so powerful, then why does your site only have a pagerank of 1? Sorry, I'm not calling you out or anything, just i'd like to know your thoughts. Currently I'm the pot calling the kettle black. I have a zero page rank. lol. But it's because I just switched domains. In a couple it should pop back up to 3 or more. Hopfully. Good work - I'm a fan!
    • [1] reply
    • TThanks! Glad to hear I could help.

      Backlinko is PR1 because it's brand new and I haven't done much link building to it yet.

      (I do have money sites and clients sites with PR4 and PR5 homepages).

      However, I don't get too hung up on PR...it doesn't mean as much as most people think.

      It's all about traffic. There are plenty of PR1s and PR2s pulling MORE search traffic than PR4s and PR5s (and ranking above them).
      • [1] reply
  • Excellent Guide! glad there is people like you in our crazy world!
  • Great strategy. You're right about asking for a link from another webmaster, you're success rate will always be better when you offer them something first or help them out rather than just flat out asking them for a favor. Thanks for taking the time to write this post.
    • [1] reply
    • That's true. I've been killing it with broken link building lately.
  • Nice Work! some good info -need to check out audio sites because think (looking at the code) - most are no follow....
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks. That's a good point: some are nofollow. You should definitely check before taking the time to make an account and drop a link.
  • One amazing post. Most inspiring. Gave me tons of new ideas and i keep this page handy all the time to get me motivated.

    Thank you so much!
  • Wow this is a great resource...


    --------------------------
    Ventolin to cure asthma
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    Backlinko, thanks for sharing.
  • thank you for that!
    great!
  • Just wanted to give this a bump because I just updated the post today (replaced some link sources that weren't working and added 2 more strategies).
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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  • Great tips, thanks! I especially like the infographics one, if you get lucky and your infographic gets picked up by other sites, it's going to be one hell of a backlinks source!
    • [2] replies
    • I am new to this...how do you use the 'expired' domain to benefit your site?

      Do you just activate it and route it to your site? Please if someone can guide me with this - I would appreciate it...as I said - am a total newbie to the IM world.

      GREAT Share by the way - as someone pointed out - you could have easily made a PDF and sold it but you decided to share - thanks for that - info like this is always priceless.
      • [1] reply
    • You're absolutely right. But you don't have to rely on luck: if you manually reach out to the right people -- with the right offer -- you can usually convince them to post your infographic on their site.
  • Here's a guide I found on how to build a blog network, IE how to use the expired domain:
    http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...g-network.html
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  • Hello Backlinko! First of all, thanks for your awesome tips

    I've been trying on that part of "developing" a game on the site you told, but i didn't found a way to export it to exe. Could you help?
    • [1] reply
    • Hmmm. I'm not sure what's wrong. I haven't created a new game in a while so maybe something changed with the exporting?
  • Wow, thank you so much for this awesome post, bookmarked the page - really helped me out with a few things, I appreciate it! Nothing was too innovative but to have all these useful ideas compiled into one place is fantastic!

    P.s. audio sharing websites are the way to go, plenty of high PR ones about too
  • Some really good advice here. I've heard about HARO for a while now and have never taken the time to dig in. Giving that one a bump on the to do list. (Thanked)
  • thanks for sharing our research..
  • nice sumarry... I've bookmarked this for when I'm looking to change my backlinking strategy and use some more exotic backlinks
  • Super Awesome! One of the best posts I have ever read in Warrior Forum. Thank you
  • Thanks for this great post that you share to us. The information and the detail were just perfect. The details are well-explained and very concise. I sharing it with my friends.
  • This is awesome.Some of them are never seen before anywhere else.I respect this guy now.
  • This is really great information, thanks backlinko!
  • Nice post ,Thanks a lot
  • - Advanced Warrior - Thank you for the post above!

    Great Post!
  • really good thread buddy , who says link building is tough all you need is time and energy and out of the box thinking there are always tons of links out there waiting to be utilize in a creative way.

    thanks for sharing this lovely piece of post Backlinko
    • [1] reply
    • EXACTLY. There are a ton of link opportunities still out there if you're willing to think creatively and work hard.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Thanks for the info, Backlinko! There were some techniques here I hadn't heard of.
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