http://www.1up-seo.com/how-get-edu-backlinks this is a short guide to some techniques how to hunt for .EDU and .GOV sites and getting a link there. Enjoy, Gerg
Interesting read and a quote "EDU sites are considered trusted by Google and therefore highly in demand by webmasters." How long before Google closes this avenue? is the question we should ask. In the meantime a valuable source of info.
Just for the record, EDU sites are NOT "considered trusted by Google" just because they are EDU sites. E.g., Matt Cutts explicitly said so. But webmasters aren't paying attention to this, and so EDU links are still "highly in demand by webmasters." It's the age of the site that counts, and if it's a trusted site, or a hub. The "extension" is of no importance. Warkot
I don't know if that's true. Almost every .edu I've ever seen had a high PR automatically (even on sub pages with very little content). Still, whether it's the extension or not, you can't get away from the fact that having big sites with .edu's linking to you is always a good thing.
I agree with Warkot. The reason that most .edu's and .gov's have a high PR is because they often all link together. Perhaps a few are authorities, such as Harvard or Oxford, but I'm sure it's not simply because of the domain extension. Just look at Adison.edu as an example.
Those are some really good suggestions. Thanks for that George, I'd like to add to your list - Plain old fashioned email works pretty good. Professors, teachers and students, can and do add links to their .edu pages. The hard part is, coming up with the right words to say in the email so they will actually even consider it. If your website has something to offer a user, and its related to the .edu content - you might just get yourself a link. If that doesn't work, you can always offer cash or trade for products. Professors are human too, and some do accept money for links.
OMG not this edu/gov crap again. If you don't believe Matt Cutts then use some logic. Edu and Gov websites are educational and government websites... Not some MFA arcade crap. People naturally link to government and educational websites. If a university, research center or an embassy were to chose a .com domain nothing would change. If they had a domain extension .popular for top 100 most popular website in the world would you say that search engines prefer .popular extension domains? So obviously Edu and Gov domains tend to have higher PR and popularity... Guess why? Because they are freaking popular/authority organisations in the first place.
trich, it gets better if you write a simple html with a form for a custom google-search and incorporate those operators...hehe
True. I picked up a nice, high-PR .EDU link from an Ivy League school via email. A student was compiling a list of websites in my niche. I responded and got a very nice link. It even draws a little traffic!
Pretty funny. As you were downplaying going for .edu and .gov links, you made a great argument why you would want to. Are they great links because they are .edu or .gov only. Probably not, hard to tell. However as you stated, in most cases if they are .edu or .gov, they are trusted institutions, people have a tendency to link to them and therefore it is good to have them link to you! regardless of the reason why .edu and .gov are trusted. They normally have so many links going to them, they make great sites to get links from.
My point was that Gov and Edu are not treated any differently by search engines. And the reason why people think otherwise is because these do tend to be higher quality. However i can post links to a number of gov and edu sites that barely have any backlinks and a link from such sites would be quite useless. So what im saying is that people should just go for quality, related sites and stop going for any odd site with a gov/edu domain.
I wonder how does one know that "EDU sites are considered trusted by Google" Where is this written? Google certainly does not published this fact? Unless I miss it, I can't find it anywhere. If someone could point me to Google's statement about trusting .edu and .gov, please post it.
hey what,s this Your Trick? Yah your trick? Yah my trick buddy you stole it from my blog. http://blog.yourseoconsulting.com/2007/07/sneaky-way-to-check-your-googl... Get your facts straight if you steal someones pointers its nice to provide a linkback. No sneakyness give credit where credit is due. Or,, google just might see you as a selfish blog with only 12 outbound links on it. Sad.