There is a lot of stuff going around about how to obtain high-ranking backlinks as well as edu backlinks. It often involves registering on a more or less random site and putting your link in your profile. Sometimes it involves an outright "sneaky" way of getting your link into a site undetected.

While these methods do work as advertised I have to wonder about the value of these links. Aren't the search engines capable of recognizing the difference between a link embedded in relevant sites or content and an irrelevant link, often found in profile pages and disassociated from content?

And I also have to wonder at the potential risk of becoming recognized by a search engine as an edu link spammer. A couple years ago when I was just starting in IM I was taken in by some "greyhat" Adwords techniques and ended up getting banned.

While I woudn't expect that to happen through linking I do think it's probably a better strategy to put in the extra work to locate relevant blogs and other sites to contribute to and to link back from.

I've usually found that the "easy" ways tend to backfire.