Before they shut down for good, pop over to Google Answers and look around. GA is one of my favorite places to search for current lists of companies, associations, government agencies, non profits etc., and it’s a great place to brainstorm for ancillary niches.

For example, let’s say you were in the education industry and wanted to find a new, related market to mine for links. There’s several ways to do this on GA, you can search by keyword (be sure to set the search perimeters to answered questions) or you can look through the categories.

I searched on the generic terms “education” + “list” and after wading through a couple pages struck gold! —- http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=532067

It’s a list of sites on mentoring! I hadn’t thought about the mentoring niche initially and was happy to find a list of sites and URL’s to contact for links.

Do you sell in or around the airplane industry? Check this out: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=440535

And one more…

Need a list of headhunters in Washington DC? http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=786189

You’ll notice some researchers have stars by their names – they’re reputation points (nothing in Google is immune to reputation it seems!). Once you find the categories you’re interested in, look for these 5-star researchers, they tend to provide better answers.

So… serve up some eggnog, get comfortable and cruise through Google Answers before they wrap up their toy and whisk it away. It’s a great little resource that could provide you with lists of holiday link cheer!

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