I've heard about duplicate content being bad. But is that just within the same website? Do me a favor. Google Garden Aesthetics or Garden Aesthetics Landscape Design Look at the top 2 URLs. the gardenaesthetics.com AND THE teleport.com/lengstrom which the latter is the designer's last name after teleport.com It's not a high ranking site as far as the Google Ceiling, but for landscape designer sites in Portland, its always been in the top 3 slots, usually first - at least for 3 years. The content is not exactly identical, but very close to being identical. I was wondering if I could give my site a near duplication with a .edu or .org URL. And slowly expose it. Worth the effort?
first of all, you CANT get a .edu domain registered. They are no more available for registration to open public. Secondly, sites can rank higher or lower based on multiple factors such as no. of backlinks, no of relevant backlinks and anchor text backlinks.
godmode - your first statement is not completely accurate. A person can get a grandfathered EDU by acquiring an organization, which registered it before 2001 (e.g. a small school that closed its doors or was never launched due to a lack of funding). W/regards to the duplicate content, you're running a high (and perhaps unnecessary) risk; it can probably be reduced by hosting content on completely different servers (i.e. different IPs) and changing the structure of the website.
but isnt that just heck of work? And again my statement isnt wrong since when you buy that school, you become a organisation rather than a individual holding no EDU status.
You could double check, but when I ran backlinks on that designer's site, it looked like it had maybe 5 of them on Google. Seems to very few, but ranks above most similar industry sites. Not much to the layout - mainly a table in a table. But it is like 11 years old - one of the first landscape designer sites in Portland, if not the oldest.
yeah i noticed that site is really old. At first look, i didnt find anything impressive other than age of the site, however they could be other factors suh as exact anchor text linking and other competitive sites not good enough to outrank that site
godmode - we're digressing from the question posted by mdvaden, but what I said is that your comment re: EDUs was "not completely accurate". While you're correct by noting that new EDUs cannot be registered by individuals, you can acquire a school and be 100% owner of the school and consequently of its EDU domain. Then do an S-Corp, and then from the IRS and all other perspectives it's no different than an individual owning EDU domain. Bottom line, part of mdvaden's question was that if he could get an EDU, which is how he could legally do it in 2007.
Keep it cool Eduorg. I agree with you but i was just clarifying my point. Thats one heck of a work to get a edu unless you are damn serious about grabbing it.
godmode - no worries, this was not personal in any way, and we're on the same page. To your point, I wanted to clarify the EDU question, as it seems to come up relatively often. BTW, it's not so much work, but $$ that it takes to get EDU (i.e. there are very few schools that can be bought out at realistic prices...the best bet is usually the ones that either closed doors or never took off because of funding).
Not every school is eligible for an .edu domain; they are reserved for accredited educational institutions. But, anyone can get a .org domain. And, neither .edu nor .org links carry extra weight with Google anyway (so says Matt Cutts).
well google might have tweaked the algo to only favour top EDU domains, since that viagra and pharmacy spams was way too much to handle for google.
emptymirror - we're not discussing new registrations, but rather a way for an individual to get a grandfathered EDU domain. BTW, a more precise restriction for post-2001 EDU registrations is that the school has to be accredited by an accrediting agency appearing on the U.S. Department of Education list (not just "be accredited"). Re: what Matt Cutts says, there are two theories: one is that he is being truthful; the other one is that he is simply trying to prevent EDU spamming by saying that EDUs don't carry extra weight. Google's openness (and that of Mr. Cutt's blog) has to be taken with a grain of salt: their formula for ranking sites is their most expensive trade secret, and don't expect Google to release it to the public any time soon. Google is locked in a perpetual battle with spammers and folks trying to circumvent the system, but at the same time needs to maintain a semblance of openness and dialog with web developers. Not an easy task!
True. But any accredited educational institution is highly unlikely to be selling their domain name. It's ridiculous to think one can just buy one! Denise
Denise - please read our discussion above. Under post-2001 Educause regulations, EDU domains may not be bought or sold directly, only through organizational transfer. Thus, the only legal way for an individual to get an EDU is to acquire a school (usually a small college that either closed its doors or never took off because of funding), which owns a grandfathered EDU domain. And it's not ridiculous to buy a school with an EDU domain.
One other reason I was curious, is because of the Applegate Valley websites in this rural valley of Oregon. The Applegate Valley Business Association got a .org domain, and it seems they rose in the ranks better than some local websites I've been watching here in the two years since we moved south from near Beaverton, Oregon. I thought it may have been more than coincidence, and it got my curiosity going.