How to Use Google Search Operators for Link Building [Infographic]

While many of us might be aware of Google search operators, very few of us know how to use them the right way. They can help you with more things than you can imagine, including with white hat link building. So without further ado, let’s guide you through exactly that.

Search Operator for Replacing Backlinks

Finding your competitor’s backlinks is considered to be a must in SEO, as it not only helps you understand what you’re up against but also replicates the backlinks that you can.

So to find your competitor’s backlinks, you can perform a Google search with the following search operator:

Site:CompetitorSite.com –CompetitorSite.com 

Read more: How To Perfectly Pitch Your Guest Blog Post

Getting Guest Post Links

Getting guest post links can get a lot easier if you use some search operators the right way. You may be able to find tons of opportunities in your niche.

Here are the search operators for doing that:

Keyword “write for us”

Keyword “become a contributor”

Keyword “guest post”

Keyword “guest blog”

And obviously many more.

Another approach can be to use your competitor’s name instead of the “keyword” in the above search operators. This will allow you to find the guest posts they have made during their link building campaigns so that you can replicate them as well.

Resource Pages

Resource pages are very well-established compilations of all useful resources in a particular niche. They are available in most major niches and can be very beneficial to your SEO if learned correctly.

You can find them using the following search operators:

Keyword “resources”/”top 10 resources”

You can replace the “resources” here with different terms as listed in the infographic under the “industry resources” section.

Listing Your Site

There are many sites that simply work as an online directory, allowing other sites to get listed on them. They don’t pass as much SEO juice, but they can still help, especially with building a diverse backlink profile for your site.

Here are the search operators you would need to perform this SEO strategy:

Keyword “add a site”/”submit a site”/”suggest a site”/”recommend site”

You would need to use the other search operators as well that are mentioned in the infographic to find the most number of opportunities.

Donation Link Building

This particular link building strategy involves getting links from non-profit organizations, as many of them do have a “donors” page on their website that links out to sites of their donors.

You can find such sites using the search operators below (they can be country specific as well):

For US: .org

For UK: Both .org and .org.uk

For India: Both .org and .org.in

And the list goes on.

Paid Reviews

There are many sites these days that also allow you to submit a post as a paid review, meaning you have to pay them to get it posted.

This can sometimes work very well but you also need to be aware that overdoing these type of links can get you penalized in the long term.

The search operators for finding these opportunities include:

Keyword intext:”this is a sponsored post”

Keyword intext:”this was a sponsored post”

And more than you can see infographic listed here.