Reilly Labs Presents…

.EDU Site Hacks

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Section 1:

How And Why Do We Want Sites On An EDU Domain? –

It’s a known fact that Google and other search engines rank sites with the TLD (top level domain) .edu higher than it does other sites. The search engines also put more relevance on backlinks coming from these sites, making them a hot commodity!

It should come as no surprise as to why, in order for an organization to use the TLD they must prove they are an accredited academic university and generally the only people who have access to post content and links on these sites are members of the organizations. This generally makes the content posted higher quality and the links a more relevant ‘citation’ to the sites they are linking too.

Now in the revolution of ‘Web 2.0’ sites became more interactive, inviting the visitor to contribute content. Social media is based completely on this concept, almost all of the content on a social media site is contributed by the visitor. This includes ‘wiki’ sites like Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia created by the users. Some sites invite ‘commenting’ and ‘editing’ of their content, something that is seen on most blogging platforms like Wordpress.

Web 2.0 technologies are relevant to us, because this is what allows anyone to post content and links to sites they do not own… Something that was once only in the realm of ‘black hat’ tactics. The first method, being one that is WIDELY OVERUSED – blog and guestbook commenting. A number of EDU sites run blogging software and leave the comment section un-moderated, unfortunately this trick is well known and will not provide very useful links to you site – in fact I have seen sites penalized for using this tactic.

Now a quick search on Google for the words “Viagra”, ”Fake Watches”, “antivirus software” with the modifier site:edu will return some interesting results…

Many spammers host their landing pages on hacked sites, especially on sites with .edu and .gov TLD’s. These pages almost never get blacklisted and provide free hosting for malware or phishing sites.

This black-hat strategy usually involves finding a well known exploit in a system, and finding sites where the exploit exist. Most software companies release updates whenever a security hole is found, however the vast majority of servers (especially .edu sites for some reason) fail to update the software and leave themselves vulnerable. Say a company releases a security update in version 1.0.1 of their software. The would be black hatter then only need to search for sites that are still running the old version, a simple Google query for “powered by x version 1.0.0” gives them a list of sites to host their malware pages.

Now I HOPE I don’t have to explain why this is NOT the way to get your sites and links on edu domains… Thanks to web 2.0 innovations there are now perfectly legal and white hat ways of doing this

It is extremely expensive to have a web 2.0 site built from scratch, even for an academic organization. To cut costs, they rely on 3rd party software and content management systems. For example: Wordpress as a blogging engine, Jive as a social media solution, vbulletin for forums, etc. Now these third party solutions have the built in capability for users to register an account, view content, edit content, and create content. Some sites restrict access to only members of the organization that owns the domain, however many still leave them open for anyone to register an account and put content on the sites!

To find these sites, all you need is Google! To narrow our search down to only EDU domains (this works with any TLD) we would use the modifier site:EDU. We then start looking for any pages using a well known third party CMS where outsiders can register. For example, this query would return all EDU domains running vbulletin:

site:edu “Powered by vBulletin”

Knowing that vBulletin includes the ability for users to create their own blogs, we then try to sign up for each one and put out a blog post. This can be a tedious task, but each site you find becomes a valuable source of fresh one way .edu backlinks!

We then repeat the process for other third party web 2.0 software. Blogging, Forum, and Wiki solutions.

The rest of this guide will be step by step instructions on how to create accounts and start posting content on a number of blogs and wiki’s I have found and tested successfully. Many of the sites use the same software so this will be easy to get up and running instantly. Remember, the most important thing you should take away from this guide is the search query I mentioned above. Searching for EDU sites that are running third party web 2.0 solutions will provide you a never ending unlimited stream of high quality backlinks and sites.

One last thing before we jump in, I want to refer you to an explanation page of ‘wiki markup’. Wiki pages have their own formatting rules and this will help you when creating pages and content on wiki sites:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting

And with the, let’s begin with the first site

Section 2:

Two Best Sites To Start With –

University Of Huston Wiki

http://wiki.bauer.uh.edu/wiki/index.php

This site is the open wiki for the University of Huston. The wiki page itself is based on third party software, but has been modified to look nicer. Creating a page on this site is no different than creating a page on any standard wiki, registration is open for everyone:

Step 1: Main Page

Click the link in the upper right hand corner to start

Step 2: Login Page

Click on the link “Create an account”

Step 3: Account Creation Page

Fill out the account creation form to create an account.

When you are finished you will see the following confirmation screen:

Step 4: Edit Main Page/ Create New Pages

Click on your user name in the upper left hand corner to bring up your main page.

The wiki page provides a WYSIWYG style editor to edit your main page. The third button from the left will allow you to create internal links. If you link to a page that does not yet exist, the page will be created. You can create any number of pages in this manner and edit them as you see fit.

Step 5: Save And Enjoy!

Ashworth Community Jive Blogs

http://community.ashworthcollege.edu/index.jspa

This site is a general social media site built in Jive. This is hands down one of the most useful sites in this guide, I’ll be going over how to create blogs but there are tons more features open to you once you create your account on this site:

Step 1: Main Page

Click the “Join Now” button in the upper right hand corner.

Step 2: Account Creation Popup

Fill out the popup registration form to create an account.

Step 3: Profile Page

You can customize your profile as much as you like, I simply leave it blank and get to page creation

Step 4: Set Up Completion

Once Set-up is complete click the link to go to your home page.

Step 5: Profile Page

Click your account name in the upper left hand corner.

Step 6: Blog Creation

Click the green button to create a blog.

Step 8: Blog Creation Screen

Fill out the blog name and URL to create the blog.

Step 9: Create blog post

On the main blog page, click “Write” on the left hand side to post to your new blog. From here you can create as many pages of blog posts as you want, and explore the other options this media site has to offer.

Section 3:

MediaWIki Sites –

The following sites are hosted on .edu domains and are running the MediaWiki open source platform. This is the original system used by Wikipedia, and is one of the top Wiki platforms on the net. When the platform is installed, there are no restrictions on who can create an account unless the admin sets one. One the sites I have listed here, the admin has set no restrictions on Wiki access so you are free to navigate, create, and edit wiki pages as you see fit.

Monroe.edu TechHelp wiki

http://wiki.monroe.edu/index.php

NotableMathWiki

http://notable.math.ucdavis.edu/w/index.php

Cosmology@UCI

http://cosmology.uci.edu/Wiki/index.php

Berkley.edu CONE wiki

http://cone.berkeley.edu/app/webroot/wiki/index.php

NTR wiki

http://ntroi.wustl.edu/wiki/ntroi/index.php

UASL wiki

http://vw.ddns.uark.edu/mediawiki/index.php

Creating A Page On MediaWiki Based Sites:

Step 1: Main Screen

Click the link in the upper right hand corner to login or create an account

Step 2: Login Screen

Click the link to create an account on the wiki page

Step 3: Create Account Screen

Fill out the account creation form, email address and name is optional.

Step 4: Main Page

On the confirmation screen click your user name in the upper left hand corner:

Step 5: Edit Your Main Page

Click the link to edit your main user page

Step 6: WYSIWYG Editor

The editor is essentially the same as the previous WYSIWYG editor, creating

internal links to pages that don’t exist will create those pages and allw you to edit

them later. This can come in handy as you will want pages dedicated to whatever

topic the site you are backlinking too so it becomes more relevant to Google.

Section 4:

MoinMoin Wiki Sites –

MoinMoin is another GPL wiki engine that is used on many EDU sites. Very similar to the previous example, but the sign up process is slightly different so I added it here to be thorough.

Math.Washington.ed Sage Wiki

http://modular.math.washington.edu:9001/MyStartingPage

Step 1: Login to the site

Click the login button on the top of the page

Step 2: Create a new account

Click the link labeled “you can create one now”

Step 3: Account creation form

Fill out the account form (if you suck at math, Google can find the answers)

Step 4: Logging Into The Account

Make sure you get the highlighted confirmation message above.

Then click the login link on the top left of the page.

Step 5: Starting Page

Click on your user name in the upper left hand corner

Step 6: Homepage Creation

Click the link at the bottom “Create my home page now!”

Step 7: Page Creation

“GUI mode” is a WYSIWYG editor you can use if you don’t want the finer control

of the wiki markup language.

Section 3:

vBulletin Blog Sites –

vBulletin is one of the most widely used forum platforms online. Later versions of vBulletin have included a blogging feature – users of the system can create their own blogs hosted right on the vBulletin site! For our purposes, this means all we need to do is find edu sites running vBulletin, sort out which sites have the blog feature enabled, and further seek out the ones that have open registration. Here are the sites I found that meet this criteria:

NSU Law Forums/Blogs

http://www.nsulaw.nova.edu/forums/blog.php

unm.edu Biochemistry Forum/Blog

http://biochemed.health.unm.edu:8080/423401/blog.php

MU IT Program Blogs

http://itprogram.missouri.edu/blog.php

The Internet Public Library Learning Community

http://ipl2.cci.fsu.edu/community/wiki/index.php

Step 1: Registration

Click the register button on the upper right hand corner

Step 2: Registration Form

Fill out the registration form. You will need to confirm you email address when

presented with the success page below:

Occasionally you will need moderator’s approval to start posting. This generally

doesn’t take long, and I haven’t had any problems on the sites I listed.

One approved, you will see the confirmation page below:

Step 3: Blog Creation

Click the link labeled ‘blogs’

Step 4: Post Creation

Click the create new post button

Step 5: WYSIWYG Editor

Use the WYSIWYG editor to create your blog post.

Step 6: Complete!

After saving your post, it becomes live on the page.

Notice vBulletin based blogs also allows for blog comments.

Section 4:

ScrewTurn Sites –

ScrewTurn is a Wiki platform based in ASP.NET. It is a widely used platform for Windows based servers. Very similar to other wiki platforms by default anyone can register and create pages, and many times this default is not changed allowing anyone to create pages on sites hosting this software:

Missouri.edu Business ScrewTurn wiki

http://business.missouri.edu/GroeningC/Register.aspx

AirData Wiki

http://vista.cira.colostate.edu/AirDataWiki/

Sottos Research Group Wiki

http://sottoswiki.beckman.uiuc.edu/wiki/

Step 1: Account Creation

The button for account creation is just below the button to create a new page.

Step 2: Create Account

After filling out the account creation form, you will be able to use the link

described above to create new pages on the Wiki, or edit them as you see fit. The

method is exactly the same as other wiki’s descried in this guide.

Section 5:

Conclusion –

Pages on EDU sites have a stronger SEO presence than other TLD’s, a fact once used exclusively used by Black Hat marketers is now open for everyone thanks to web 2.0 innovations. Back links from these sites can rank your main sites quickly. The other advantage to hosting sites on edu domains is they are rarely penalized, you can boost the ranking of these pages with generic backlink strategies including blog commenting and forum profile links. This will boost your edu page, and intern boost the sites they link too.

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