Matt Cutts answers questions on .EDU, .GOV, and social bookmarking links

I would really agree to the statement that we all, I mean the SEO community,
have no real facts about the .edu and .gov links having unbelivable super link power and juice.

They are almost to impossible to get (I mean the quality ones, i.e. 1 click from homepage.... with real content, Page Rank if you wish)...

This means that no seo can put an experiment - like promoting some keyword phrase via link exchange with only .edu and .gov links -
and getting the truth revealed...

Maybe 10 or 15 super quality links is enough to promote, lets say,
2-word keyword phrase with 100mil page results in Google... hmmm in a week time )) - we won't know for sure, not having tried...


But one thing I must admit - it is really tempting to try this one

 

Only a newbie on SEO would think that links coming from .edu or .gov weighs more than a .com link. Matt clearly explains that we (the seo community) would only think that .edu links may weigh more than a .com link is because of the neighborhood it belongs which is trustworthy by google.

 

Yup a link is a link....which is why spending $300 to get into Yahoo Directory is not really worth it!

 

Makes sense. A link is a link and PR calculations do the rest. I'd seen all the hype for gov and edu, so nice to get a clear answer. Thanks.

 

great post ....
thanks

 

Is not that it 'weights" more, but look at Edu pages, usually they have a very high PR and they usually don't send to many links out, that's why usually this links pass quite a good amount of juice.

 

Did anyone realize the last post in this thread was from more than one and a half years ago?

 

Yep, in the past there were people calling themselves SEOs who paid students for their worthless .edu webspace and then sold links, multiplying their investment.

A real .edu link can be golden, but all links from these parasite hosted linkfarms or any webpages not directly linked from important pages of an .edu site aren't worth a buck.

 

"Secret souse" means he is not telling everything about it.

Assuming under same situation
- number of outgoing links
- page's PR
- etc

.Gov and .edu values higher than .com

 

i have been building links for quite sometime, about 6 months ago, and having some .edu and .gov surely helps specially when it has a high PR though the page of the link is not the same PR as with the homepage..

 

Oh my word... Such many naive comments.

(1) - Matt Cutts said 'as far as he knows' he doesnt know 100% how the Google algo works, otherwise he could easily quit and make his own Google etc.
(2) - Matt Cutts has been proved wrong in many of his interviews about differing subjects, meaning he doesn't know everything.
(3) - .edu and /gov backlinks are more valued, cos the domain PR is normally a lot higher and the Trustrank (different to PageRank) is amazingly high giving you more link value.

Bottom line, .edu and /gov links on average will give you a lot more positive effects. I have done a couple of experiments myself to this effect.

Final note for you all to ponder.... Ever heard the expression.... 'Dont believe everything you read......' well don't.... Perhaps I am lying to you too! The point is, you should take everything with a pinch of salt and do your own experiments and figure out what works for you!!!

 

Thank you Matt. Woohhhh.

 

We need to hear more about the "secret sauce" stuff.

And on a similar topic, I'd like to hear about the weight given to .info's versus .com, .net, and .org. Anyone know if Cutts has "weighed" in on that yet?

 

I definitely don't believe everything I hear from Matt as he has an agenda and won't be telling us everything, just what he wants us to hear. However I tend to agree with this as I don't thing just the sole fact that they are .gov or .edu determines their link value. I think it is just the fact that .gov and .edu tend to be better quality due to having high quality, relevant backlinks pointing to them while having a relatively low number of outbound links.