i thought i remember hearing something about .edu backlinks being good for SEO. is this true? or just some random myth? i have access to a .edu website and am thinking about putting some related external links to my website(s) on it. would this be benneficial? i'm pretty much an SEO noob so bare with me here!
This myth was dispelled by Matt Cutts in one of his videos. There is no advantage gained from having a link from a .edu/,gov page that you can't get from an equivalent .any page. There is no reason why any of the other search engines would give such a boost either.
yep, not only single page have own weight, page also have "part of" domain weight, so link from any part of .edu and .gov domains is pretty good. BTW, pls PM me if you can add some nutrition links to .edu domain
i dont, and i dont think ANYONE should believe everything matt cutts says. .edu and .gov links surely help imo. a link from those kinds of sites are almost 99.9% natural so I am sure that is taken into account.
My best guess without any testing is that many .edu sites are considered authority sites therefore giving more credence to a link.
yes I have heard that .edu sites are considered more authoritive, but I can't say for sure. My suggestion is if you can get links from .edu site, go ahead.... you have nothing to lose.
Given the widely publicised spam pages on .edu domains, determining the 'authority' of a site simply from its TLD ain't gonna work, is it? The 'authority' a .edu/.gov page has comes from its contents and its backlinks, not its TLD. Google have nothing to gain from telling us porkies about the value of .edu/.gov links. Anyone getting a deja vu with this thread?
I think everything about EDU's boils down to linking structure. You have thousands of edu's linking to each other along with gov sites. All of them are relevant to each other. I think that the "boost" you get from an EDU has to do with the link popularity and not a special gift that google has deemed for the site extension. Personally I wouldn't touch an EDU domain with a 10 ft pole. The link brokers that are selling these links aren't telling you that your link(s) appear on the bottom on one of the pages in an advertisment section with other links that have nothing to do with your services. This looks very spammy and I know of EDU's that no longer carry value because of it. I mean come on... you think Google will reward a link for air purifiers on USC.edu? Better to build links naturally from similar catagory pages and sites.
I think Matt said that so people don't try to spam/hack/whatever .edu's and .gov sites to dilute the rankings. I believe that they are given substantial credit.
If the .edu you putting link from is one of the trusted .edu, if their content related to yours, if your link will appear naturally in their content so why not? Just put it.