Every SEO forum since the dawn of time Google has been debating the power of high authority links such as .Edu or .Gov links. There are literally dozens of articles out there in the great wide web and every few months a different debate begins on how much these links actually effect your rankings.
It’s a common belief in some SEO circles that a link from .Edu or .Gov site is the best type of link you can ever get in order to improve your rankings. This belief comes from the fact it is not easy to obtain control of these domains on the open market as you have to be an educational or government establishment.
So are Google actually giving more or less weighting to certain Top Level Domains (TLD’s) well yes they can, and do look at the case of co.cc domains, but in the case of .Gov or .Edu links they claim not to do so as Googler JohnMu stated:
In general, I would like to add that no, backlinks from .EDU domains generally do not get “additional credibility from Google.” Because of that, the whole topic of working especially hard to talk webmasters of these domains into linking to your sites seems a bit problematic…
Some in the world of SEO will scream conspiracy that Google don’t want to let out the secret recipe but then let’s look at these types of links from the proper angle. Google may actually be telling the truth their algorithm may not give these TLD’s a considerably higher weighting than a .com or .co.uk but it is all actually based on Pagerank. Remember that thing Larry Page invented which means links from web pages with lots of links themselves carry more value than those that don’t.
These types of web pages are often well linked to and many have been around for years. So what I am saying is that despite their “perceived” authority due to their offline status as an institue of learning it is actually the quality of the pages that are linking into these sites i.e. Corporate blue chip companies, Major hospitals or large news resources e.g. the Guardian, BBC that make them an authority online not the TLD.
From past experience I have used Broken Link Building on .Gov or .Edu sites, whereby you look for broken links on a resource and inform the webmaster to replace the link with a resource to your own content.
Outreach also works quite well in order to gain .edu links as most universities now provide their students and faculty with blogging platforms and sub domains so it is quite easy to email them relevant content to their blog or studies. If you really wanted to invest a significant amount of time and resources you could look for a piece of research they produced and reference it in a piece of your own content e.g. an info-graphic and its highly likely that you will obtain a link back as they will naturally want to share this with their peers.
Invite an academic to write an article on your blog or even come and speak to your workforce or at an industry conference you are running, chances are they will link to you as they wish to reference their engagements. As you can see you are only limited by your own imagination as to how you can obtain these types of links but by offering useful resources for Government or Academic webmasters to link to you will have a much higher success rate.
So do Edu or Gov links help get you better rankings, yes but they are no better than any other well linked TLD, and remember after all SEO is not just about rankings!
It’s a common belief in some SEO circles that a link from .Edu or .Gov site is the best type of link you can ever get in order to improve your rankings. This belief comes from the fact it is not easy to obtain control of these domains on the open market as you have to be an educational or government establishment.
So are Google actually giving more or less weighting to certain Top Level Domains (TLD’s) well yes they can, and do look at the case of co.cc domains, but in the case of .Gov or .Edu links they claim not to do so as Googler JohnMu stated:
In general, I would like to add that no, backlinks from .EDU domains generally do not get “additional credibility from Google.” Because of that, the whole topic of working especially hard to talk webmasters of these domains into linking to your sites seems a bit problematic…
Some in the world of SEO will scream conspiracy that Google don’t want to let out the secret recipe but then let’s look at these types of links from the proper angle. Google may actually be telling the truth their algorithm may not give these TLD’s a considerably higher weighting than a .com or .co.uk but it is all actually based on Pagerank. Remember that thing Larry Page invented which means links from web pages with lots of links themselves carry more value than those that don’t.
These types of web pages are often well linked to and many have been around for years. So what I am saying is that despite their “perceived” authority due to their offline status as an institue of learning it is actually the quality of the pages that are linking into these sites i.e. Corporate blue chip companies, Major hospitals or large news resources e.g. the Guardian, BBC that make them an authority online not the TLD.
How to get .Edu or .Gov Links?
With the right amount of time, hustle or money you can get a backlink on just about any site you want. Building relationships, investing in the right tools and good content will allow you to get these links easily.From past experience I have used Broken Link Building on .Gov or .Edu sites, whereby you look for broken links on a resource and inform the webmaster to replace the link with a resource to your own content.
Outreach also works quite well in order to gain .edu links as most universities now provide their students and faculty with blogging platforms and sub domains so it is quite easy to email them relevant content to their blog or studies. If you really wanted to invest a significant amount of time and resources you could look for a piece of research they produced and reference it in a piece of your own content e.g. an info-graphic and its highly likely that you will obtain a link back as they will naturally want to share this with their peers.
Invite an academic to write an article on your blog or even come and speak to your workforce or at an industry conference you are running, chances are they will link to you as they wish to reference their engagements. As you can see you are only limited by your own imagination as to how you can obtain these types of links but by offering useful resources for Government or Academic webmasters to link to you will have a much higher success rate.
So What is their Value?
If you were to ask me what I look for in a link then, I value backlinks on the number of visitors, neigh, the number of pre-qualified visitors that the link can send me. What I mean by that is if I could get a few hundred visitors to my site from a back link, who are motivated to buy my product or subscribe to my mailing list, I would spend more time and money obtaining these links than just chasing links from Universities and Government sites.So do Edu or Gov links help get you better rankings, yes but they are no better than any other well linked TLD, and remember after all SEO is not just about rankings!
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