Hi all, Question related to government and education backlinks. I know that .edu and .gov sites backlinking to your site is a big benefit in SEO, however does anyone know if Google recognizes .gov.uk and .ac.uk (the private domain equivalents in the UK) as equally valuable? I don't think Yahoo does as they don't appear as .edu or .gov links on Yahoo Site explorer but I'm not sure. Any feedback would be appreciated!
The search engines do not give any kind of boosts based on domain name extension. This is a false assumption that many people make. .edu and .gov links are good, but it is because the websites are old and heavily linked. So if a .gov.uk website is also old and heavily linked it will be great backlink too. It is nothing to do with the .gov or .edu though.
It is good to get a combination of .com .net .edu .uk .etc It shows that your domain have extensive numbers of audience. In my opinion, it is same for all domain extensions backlinks value.
.edu and .gov themselves aren't better TLD's rather it is the authority of the link based on who links to the .edu and the .gov. The same phenomenon exists whether its a US .edu or not. In short, they are the same.