Why .edu backlinks consider as very good for PR?

Hi

I m new here and have a simple question

Why .edu backlinks consider good for PR?

So if I have to make a choice between .com with PR4 and .edu with PR1, which is better choice for backlinks?

I hope you will kindly give suggestions.

Truthfully
cashblogs

 

The tld has nothing to do with PR; however, there may be more trust associated with a .edu domain, which could result in higher rankings.

 

Hey cashblogs,
If you have the option to get a PageRank 4 .com website, than you should definitely go for it. There is no value difference, because of the extension.

 

I think the .edu back links can to help your SE rankings is not important the PR, is more important the content of the site from where you have BL.

 

.edu look like authority sites to the search engines so they place more weight on this. I believe it will help with SERP

 

It is a tough choice between the two, but about .edu websites, it's the fact that they are so hard to get a link to, so SE sees them as more authoritative than other websites.

 

Hi cashblogs,

Assuming everything else is equal (both the page on the .com and the .edu site are relevant to your topic, will be using the same anchor link text pointing back to your page, both rank well - as in the top 1,000 results for the key phrases and words you're targeting , et cetera), you will want to go for the .com link. Not only does the page on the .com TLD have the higher PageRank value, but there's also no difference whatsoever between a .com or .edu TLD (or any other TLD whatsoever, except for when someone performs a country-specific search, such as when someone in New Zealand is searching for information on pages from New Zealand at www.google.co.nz for instance).

I'm going to say this again. There is NO benefit whatsoever derived from a .edu or .org or .gov TLD. None. Anybody who tells you otherwise is either honestly mistaken, doesn't know any better (the first two are easily forgivable of course) or is trying to separate you from your hard earned money (such as someone who "offers" to get you 1,500 .edu backlinks for $300 without telling you that those .edu backlinks will be from low-quality student generated pages that are not relevant to your site's topic/niche/market with PageRanks of 0, 1, or at best a rare 2).

You're correct on the first part (about the TLD having no impact on PageRank), but you're wrong with the second part. There is no trust associated with or inferred about a .edu TLD since all search engines treat them the same way. The only way a .edu will outrank a .com is when it's been around for a long time and has gained a LOT of quality back-links from other site owners that have cited the Web site on the .edu TLD as an authoritative and quality resource on a particular subject while the Web site with the .com TLD has failed to do so (for whatever reason). The same would be true if you were to reverse the situation as well, giving the .com the tender link-loving care while the .edu gets left with the table scraps.

Then of course there are other factors to consider as well, such as the qualitiy of the text on the pages within each site, how well the pages on each site inter-link with the other pages on those sites internally (page A and page B on the same site linking to each other), and so forth.

Precisely.

It won't help just because it's a .edu - remember, search engines index PAGES, not sites, and PageRank is determined per page, not per site as well. In other words, the TLD has nothing to do with PageRank. Only the number and quality of the other pages that link to those pages.

Actually, they don't. As I've said before, the TLD has no bearing on search engine rankings. Only the quality, relevance and number of inbound links pointong to the pages on the Web sites have any factor. That, and content. Can't get the links without the content (and who in their right mind would want to use a search engine and find no content on the pages that turned up in the SERPs anyway?).

As I've said before:

1. The .com is better since it's got a higher PageRank (assuming that both the .com and the .edu backlinks are quality relevant well-ranking pages that deal with cashblog's topic at hand)
2. Search engines do not see .edu TLDs as being "better" or more authoritative just because they're .edu TLDs. ALL top level domains have the same "weight" as far as they're concerned. The search engines don't play favorites, they rank content and sites by relevance. Especially given that they profit directly from ranking sites by relevance via advertising revenue in the first place

 

.edu back links can make your site in good position.

 

Actually I'm correct on both parts. As I wrote, there may be more trust associated with a .edu domain, which could result in higher rankings. You'd have to analyze the page in question to make this call.

I'm not suggesting that the TLD alone has some inherent power to increase rankings, but generally speaking, .edu and .gov sites in particular tend to have a number of characteristics that make them attractive, including excellent network distribution among their own backlinks and backlinks from other trusted, high quality sources. This all combines to create an overall profile of a trusted authority site, and links from those can improve your rankings. Add to this the fact that they're not generally as easy to get as .com links and I really don't see how you can say it's a strict apples-to-apples comparison. It's just not that simple.

 

I've read that there are no actual benefits to .edu domains. Now a .gov is a different story, but .edu I haven't heard of benefits.

 

I dont agree with the view that all tld's are treated equally. I am convinced a .edu/.gov is seen as a better link than a .com, as long as everything else is equal. I mean a genuine .edu link, not one on a spammy student generated blog etc.

 

But the TLD plays absolutely no part in that process. If you take all the content and all the back-links from a .edu or .gov TLD and put it on any other TLD (let's say for the sake of arguement it's a .com but it could be as crazy or ludicrous as a .biz for all I care) the site will rank just as well (this is assuming the site and all the backlinks were never on or pointed to the .edu or .gov but instead another TLD to begin with).

Take your trusted university or government Web site. If those pages were hosted on a .com instead of a .edu or .gov TLD would they rank less because of the domain name? Of course not. The content is still there, the internal linking structure is still there, and all the other pages linking back to the pages on that site are still there.

Why do you think the TLD should play such a big part in the ranking of a Web page when it's obvious that it doesn't?

As I've said before, the TLD has no bearing on a page's ranking in the search engines. The content and the links pointing back to that page (both from pages inside the site and from other sites) are what matter.

I'll just have to let Matt Cutts convince you otherwise (a transcript of the end of the video, where he debunks the .edu and .gov myth, is below).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1756437348670651505

But I do appreciate your constructive criticsm nonetheless (a rare thing around here), and will be +rep'ing you for it. Thanks.

 

I read your +rep comment, and I appreciate it. I think we're just going to need to agree to disagree here

I just don't feel anything from Matt Cutts is a valid reference, he works for google after all. I have said before, what he says should not immediately be taken as 100% truth. Of course I think it suits Google to have some misleading info out there.

Regardless, I appreciate your views and you did make some good points, as I left in the rep

I'll be interested to see anyone elses view on this, though I doubt we will ever know for sure 100% either way!

vic.

 

Why do you think Google would want to give people misleading information? Afterall, it's in their best interest to serve the most relevant content to the people who use their search engine, right? And aren't we the ones who are in the best position to create and deliver the content that the people search for? One would think they'd want us to have the tools and knowledge necessary to properly construct and market our sites so that Google could in turn serve those sites to its users (not to mention make money off of them via advertising as well). Maybe not know everything (such as what the algorithm looks like), but at least enough to serve both their and our best interests.

Granted, it's not an ideal relationship to be in, but I sure as shine wouldn't want to even consider what the alternative would look like (imagines Yoshi ending up in Raccoon City after getting a flat tire).

 

haha. I just remembered I had a student generated website and was considering using it too. well, as long as it's not spammy, right?

 

There was a video of Matt Cutz about this. There is no difference big between edu and others. The only difference is edu website taking backlinks from popular web pages. Because of that they become more efficient

 

I already posted that video here. It was the Lightning Round "episode".

 

I totally agree, but my point is that in real life you just don't see all the same content and all the same back-links from .edu or .gov TLDs on other TLDs. These sites have characteristic profiles because of the very nature of what they are. People link to them freely and on a regular basis.

I don't care if you call it a .xyz TLD. If that's the TLD used by universities and/or government sites, which have an inherent perception of authority and tend to receive tons of one-way, relevant links from other authority sites, then a link from that .xyz site will be valuable.

I don't think the nomenclature of the TLD plays a part in ranking because it's totally arbitrary, but the characteristic profile of certain TLDs, such as .edu and .gov, obviously DOES play a big part. Certain TLDs have a tendancy to posses better content, backlinks, and authority characteristics, and links from those sites are valuable.

I do appreciate the quality discussion, btw. Here are a few more interesting perspectives:

http://wiep.net/link-value-factors/#31

 

<<Why do you think Google would want to give people misleading information?>>

Of course Matt Cutts wants everyone to know that .edu links aren't more highly regarded in the algorithm than .coms as the last thing google wants is to give the true answer away and have thousands of people hijacking and spamming .edu sites in any way they can to get a ranking. Cutts saying .edu links aren't worth more is a way of trying to keep google's algorithm working.

tom

 

Now remove the government/university connection. If it belonged to a non-profit organization, a corporation or even an individual (all other things being the same of course), would it be any less valuable? Of course not.

Which is human psychology and the proper allocation of available resources (sometimes vast resources, as is the case with governments and universities) and not any search engine alogorithm I'm aware of (not that I have insider knowledge, of course).

It is a much needed and refreshing change from the status quo here, isn't it?