do you take any .EDU backlink?

14 years ago

WOW

Easily the most spam I have ever seen. I don't know the answer to your question but people will argue both points. Go for it. Google aren't going to squash you for one spammy link.

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VeitSchenk

14 years ago

found another .EDU that was even spammier, half of it was in Chinese or Russian characters....

I'll try it on a test-blog and see if/how it affects rankings over the next couple of weeks

Originally Posted by JimmyRose

WOW

Easily the most spam I have ever seen. I don't know the answer to your question but people will argue both points. Go for it. Google aren't going to squash you for one spammy link.

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VaultBoss 14 years ago

Normally, you should get no harm to your site from a backlink as you describe...

Imagine, if it would be so...and you were my direct competitor, how I could go there and send enough links back to you to bury your website forever?

However, do not expect it do be any good for you. As for link juice, especially if full of other links in there... no more juice left, huh?
Second, if Google spotted those already as bad sites... even if some juice was left, still no ranking from there.

It is simply a futile exercise. My 2¢

Steve Lorenzo SEOVirtuoso
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zoobie

14 years ago

Personally I think it is a MYTH about hooking your link on it. Why an .edu is more authority than a .com website? And why a website must link with an .edu domain in order to get more authority status?

What about a website hosts outside of the States?
Does a user really care when a site that they are reading
got a link with an .edu domain?

I am saying this because in fact some of my sites do got a link
from an .edu domain but my sites weren't seen top 10 in Google.
If an .edu domain is so powerful, my sites should rank well over
others but why they are not seen?

And what's more why an university or a college in the US considers more
authority than OTHERS? Does it make sense? Think about it.

I think people do agree there are lots of good colleges around the world
and NOT just those in the US are the best!

So I personally think an .edu domain is just the same with others
domain. And with user perspective, if the links don't add value to
their visits, they shouldn't exist on the web page that they are
reading at all.

Just bear in mind Google is a company that highly focuses on USERs
experiences. So every SEO technique should focus on user
experience as well and NOT the search spiders.

Those are just my opinions. What do you think?

Thanks
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VaultBoss

14 years ago

Originally Posted by zoobie

Personally I think it is a MYTH about hooking your link on it. Why an .edu is more authority than a .com website? And why a website must link with an .edu domain in order to get more authority status?

What about a website hosts outside of the States?
Does a user really care when a site that they are reading
got a link with an .edu domain?[...]

Just bear in mind Google is a company that highly focuses on USERs experiences. So every SEO technique should focus on user experience as well and NOT the search spiders.

Those are just my opinions. What do you think?

You have raised some very good and valid questions.

I am one who always doubts the popular sayings and subsequent myths...
You have put up a very good argumentation.
I'd like to see other people's opinions on this, but I'll make a point to add a question on Matt Cutts' blog...

Still many people consider .edu and .gov links to bear more importance than the ones from other domains.

To be the 'devil's advocate' here, I'd say it may be due to the fact that it is usually much more difficult to obtain links (at least natural not paid, etc...) from these sites, unless you have a very, very reputable site and relevant content.
If that would be so in 100% of the cases, then it may make sense that these links are more important.

However, the question of why say... universities from other countries wouldn't be considered just the same?

Steve Lorenzo SEOVirtuoso

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khtm

14 years ago

I agree. It's hilarious how much emphasis some people will put on .EDU and .GOV domains when there's been no evidence that Google weighs certain domain extensions higher than others.

Like someone else said, "a link is a link is a link". All other things considered equal (nofollow, PR, traffic, etc.) I'd be as happy with a backlink from a .EDU page as I would with a .INFO page.

Originally Posted by zoobie

Personally I think it is a MYTH about hooking your link on it. Why an .edu is more authority than a .com website? And why a website must link with an .edu domain in order to get more authority status?

What about a website hosts outside of the States?
Does a user really care when a site that they are reading
got a link with an .edu domain?

I am saying this because in fact some of my sites do got a link
from an .edu domain but my sites weren't seen top 10 in Google.
If an .edu domain is so powerful, my sites should rank well over
others but why they are not seen?

And what's more why an university or a college in the US considers more
authority than OTHERS? Does it make sense? Think about it.

I think people do agree there are lots of good colleges around the world
and NOT just those in the US are the best!

So I personally think an .edu domain is just the same with others
domain. And with user perspective, if the links don't add value to
their visits, they shouldn't exist on the web page that they are
reading at all.

Just bear in mind Google is a company that highly focuses on USERs
experiences. So every SEO technique should focus on user
experience as well and NOT the search spiders.

Those are just my opinions. What do you think?

Thanks

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petelta

14 years ago

The thing I've noticed about .edu sites is a lot of them are highly ranked PR. If I'm ever looking for some PR6+ backlinks at the drop of the hat, I do a search for .edu forums. It's more difficult for me to find decent places to drop a backlink with .coms. It might be just because there are so many of them. Just my experience.

Travis

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Troy_Phillips

14 years ago

A link is a link is a link .

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Frank Bruno

14 years ago

.gov domains inheritantly have high authority "out of the gate" because you must be a governemnt entity to register. There are fewer .gov than .com registered thus also the same principle as mining for gold.

(try registering a .gov through godaddy- lol)

If everybody had gold then where is the value?

Frank Bruno

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applemedic

14 years ago

It will count as a backlink but you really should try to get some backlinks that is similar to your niche. If you can get a .edu backlink go for it, but it should not be your main focus.

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Frank Bruno

14 years ago

Originally Posted by applemedic

It will count as a backlink but you really should try to get some backlinks that is similar to your niche. If you can get a .edu backlink go for it, but it should not be your main focus.

Thats always "nicer" but is actually irrelevant for juicing your sites as long as its high authority , high PR do follow.

Frank Bruno

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shaunjamie2005

14 years ago

There is one competitive niche that I have been looking at for the past couple of months. I took the top 5 ranked sites for a very competitive keyword and put it in to a back link checker. All of the top sites have back links on various spammy .edu and .com blogs (not even related to their niche). Over the past couple of months these sites haven't budged. They are still ranking high.

Two of the top ranking sites wrote a ton of articles along with posting on these spammy sites. However the sites in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th position? They haven't really written that many articles.

Now whether they will get penalized down the road I don't know. But for now...they are going strong.

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greenovni

14 years ago

The funny thing is that if you go through the links on that site, some big commercial sites are also getting links there...

like rottentomatos.com from current tv!!!

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SPress

14 years ago

eh...it won't hurt to put a link there, but it really doesn't add much value either as the page has over 2400 outgoing links already.

The domain has a nice PR6 (although the page has no PR) and presumably a high trust factor with google, but you're sharing that amongst a plethora of other outbound links.

Simply in the name of link diversity you may consider it.

Of course, in the time it took me to respond here, I could have left a link there