Gold How to Use Footprints to Build Super Relevant Backlinks!

[Jay Wessman]

Sup Ninjas!

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As many of you guys might know I'm a big fan of SEO so I thought I would share with you all a simple trick that you can use to find super relevant websites to build backlinks on using "Footprints".

So what the hell are footprints?

Footprints are strings of text that we can use to find websites that operate using the same software. So for example - forums that run on the vBulletin software (such as this one) will have the text "Powered by vBulletin" somewhere in the footer.

This means that if we wanted to find a whole bunch of vBulletin forums we could simply do a Google search for "Powered by vBulletin":

Then if we wanted to find a whole bunch of vBulletin forums that are related to our niche we can do a Google search for Keyword "Powered by vBulletin".

So for example if we have a website about "Healthy Pet Treats" and wanted to find websites about "Pets" we can search like this:

And you've now got a whole bunch of pet related vBulletin forums.

So how can footprints help us to get backlinks?

By searching for footprints for website platforms that we know allow us to add links we can instantly find large amounts of relevant websites that we can build links on.

So for example - almost every forum platform will allows you to add a link somewhere. Usually a link can be added as a signature or as a profile homepage URL (or both).

So to find relevant forums that we can build backlinks on we just need to know what footprints to use.

Footprints for the most common forum platforms include:

vBulletin - "Powered by vBulletin"
phpBB - "Powered by phpBB"
XenoBB - "Powered by XennoBB" + "Xenno Group"
PHPNuke - "PHP-Nuke Copyright" + "by Francisco Burzi"
MyBB - "Powered By MyBB" "Return to Content | Lite (Archive) Mode"
FluxBB - "Powered by fluxbb"
UseBB - "Powered by UseBB 1 Forum Software"
XMB Forums - "Powered by XMB"

Don't forget to add your keyword to the footprint so that you find websites that are related to your niche!

Another good way to use Footprints is to find blogs and other websites that allow you to post comments along with a website link.

Here are some footprints for common platforms that allow comments:

WordPress - "mail address will not be published" "Powered by WordPress"
Joomla - "Powered by Joomla!" "Write comment" "Website:"
B2Evolution - "Your email address will not be revealed on this site." "Leave a comment"
BlogEngine - "Powered By BlogEngine" "Add A Comment" "Name*"
SquareSpace - site:*.squarespace.com "Post a New Comment"
SharePoint - "Built using the SharePoint" "Comments"
Drupal - Powered by Drupal + "Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically."
Movable Type - "Powered by Movable Type" + "Post a comment" -movabletype.org
4Images - "Powered by 4images" "Author:" "Comment"
Geeklog - "Powered by Geeklog" "The following comments are owned"
Plogger - "Powered by Plogger" "Post a comment:"

Now get out there and build some backlinks to your website!

GET MY FULL SEO COURSE.

 

[david15923]

Really good tip

 

[slowpoison1987]

Thanks for the info..

 

[K]

Love it Jay - well done man!

 

[Micks]

Thats a good way to find stuff but the search query is extremely broad.

To get a much more targeted search it's a good idea to enlist the use of google "Advanced operators".

Advanced Operators at a glance-

• intitle: - Search page title
• inurl: - Search URL
• site: - limit results to a specific site
• link: - other sites that link to our subject
• inanchor: - search within hyperlinks
• filetype: - Starting to see a patern yet?

Once you've found a site use these terms to search the site and find the specific post/thread you want to comment on. Saves heaps of time looking for them by hand.

For a much more in depth analysis of how these anchors work I recommend reading the Google Hackers Handbook.

It's quite an interesting read and will also help you with securing your own sites.

 

[Nat]

Do you know of any footprints that are auto approve?

 

[ImAdmirer]

Do you know of any footprints that are auto approve?

Try this along with any other footprints:

"*Keyword says:" +"TodaysDate"

Replace the Keyword with your keyword. And put the today's date. Most of the blogs would likely be auto approve ones.

The thinking behind this is if a blog's comments are indexed today then it could likely be an auto-approve one.

Try this and let us know if this worked

 

[Jay Wessman]

Thats a good way to find stuff but the search query is extremely broad.

To get a much more targeted search it's a good idea to enlist the use of google "Advanced operators".

Advanced Operators at a glance-

• intitle: - Search page title
• inurl: - Search URL
• site: - limit results to a specific site
• link: - other sites that link to our subject
• inanchor: - search within hyperlinks
• filetype: - Starting to see a patern yet?

Once you've found a site use these terms to search the site and find the specific post/thread you want to comment on. Saves heaps of time looking for them by hand.

For a much more in depth analysis of how these anchors work I recommend reading the Google Hackers Handbook.

It's quite an interesting read and will also help you with securing your own sites.

I definitely don't think a footprint is "too broad" for finding links... they're specific enough to find the exact pages that you can build links on and broad enough to allow you to find a heap of them.

The operators you mentioned are definitely useful for other stuff but really aren't that great for finding pages to build links on. Limiting yourself to just one URL or whatever isn't going to help you find a diverse range of place to build backlinks at all.

Do you know of any footprints that are auto approve?

IMAdmirers suggestion looks like it would probably work but to be honest I don't really like auto approve blogs.

They are usually spammed to death and I'd much rather take the time to write a decent comment and get a link on a decent page that's not filled with junky backlinks.

It's really not that hard to get your comment approved on a blog - just write something that's actually relevant to the content and not obvious spam and most webmasters will approve it.

 

[ImAdmirer]

People look for auto approve blogs because they could import them into scrapebox and run it 24/7 hands free to spam blog comments thereby indexing/getting backlinks to their backlinks.

But you are 100% right. The well thought and written comments on moderated blogs are more useful seo wise than auto approve blog comments which have high number of outbound links and spammed to death. You also gain reputation if you give a useful comment on a blog in your niche.

 

[K]

Such a great thread and tip and I'm amazed at over 20k views on this - Jay you certainly know your stuff

 

[K]

Bounce!

 

[Andy Haskins]

Good bounce! Great tips Jay

 

[anes2010]

Thanks for the info

 

[K]

Views: 133,348

wow!​

 

[Marc]

I watch these incredible view numbers for some time now.

Jay in the Guinness Book of Records!!

 

[K]

I watch these incredible view numbers for some time now.

Jay in the Guinness Book of Records!!

Ha for sure, this guy knows his stuff - the content in The Dojo is amazing he's done!

 

[varung]

nice tip

 

[copyninja]

I love footprints, they definitely won't die young either.

 

[Unicorn]

Great post! Wish to see more similar good quality posts here.

 

[akaaka]

that was an amazing way to get some amazing link...