Proof .Gov and .EDU links are just like any other links

I tested it myself and I can say with confidence that edu and gov backlinks do carry a lot of weight.
I have a blog which is in the dog niche(very competitive).It was at no 27 for 4 months and I did everything I could like press releases,forums profiles,articles,web 2.0 and etc.Then after spying on some competitors sites I found out some edu sites.I just posted my comments on those edu sites and after 8 days I was at no 13 and as far as I remember I did nothing but only commenting on 6 edu sites.My pr also increased after the pr update.Previously my blog had a pr of 1 but now it managed to get a pr of 3.Now it sits at no 6 and I can confidently say that it happened because of the edu links.

I bet Matt Cutts is a great poker player...So, if whitehouse.gov links to me, it is as valuable as yourdomain.com? I doubt it. It may be a broad stroke to say that .edu and .gov in general help, but I know that some sites have way more weight than others. I have purposely SEO'd sites slow, to test some theories. When you don't do anything for a couple weeks, then add a link fom one site, and you jump from page 3 to 2, it is hard to tell me otherwise that the site I just linked from has no effect on my rankings.

NO MORE MATT CUTTS! lol people need to serious realize that the words that come out of his mouth are for Googles best interests in keeping their ranking natural... Google (matt cutts) is never going to tell you real tricks to rank higher, because if they did every single SEO wannabe would go out and immediate start gaming the system.

I was hoping based on the title you had real proof and not just Matt Cutts biased "advice" all to keep his algorithm a "mystery" the best he can.

niffybranco: I think you are finding the "exceptions to the rule" when we should think much broader.

We need to stop putting importance on the domain extension and place that importance on the type of sites generally hosted on those domains.

Education and government sites are more likely to be hosted on .edu and .gov domains. In fact is it not set up that you have to jump through hoops just to obtain a .edu domain? That fact alone would put more weight on sites with that domain extension.

so assuming TRUE education and government sites would never dream of being "spammy" and do obtain thousands of visitors and backlinks NATURALLY (because they are well established offline to begin with)...

I think it is safe to say that most .edu and .gov sites like this are sure to carry more weight than most sites built by "joe blow" with your common .com domain extension.

In short - It comes down to the page rank of the page your link is on, not the domain extension. **You will find more legitimate high PR .edu and .gov sites than .com ones and this is why those domain extensions are more popular for links.

I agree with a lot of what was said here regarding to the substantial amount of weight that a .gov/.edu link carries. I've seen with my own eyes the effect of these type of links on some of my sites that were sitting at the bottom of the SERPS.

Google really doesn't do what it says. We all know that the nofollow attribute was applied to stop the flow of pagerank but we still do blog commenting on sites that we KNOW are no-follow because we KNOW that they still pass link juice.

All sites are not weighed equally. For instance a little known technique of mine is to write worthwhile content that meets the scrutiny of the wikipedia nazis. If I can get a link on wikipedia then I know that I'm good. If it lasts for more than a week than I definitely see a increase in my rankings and overall PR.

My .02

I have never noticed much of a difference with .edu or .gov backlinks.

So should we trust Matt Cutts or not?

Before we get into this, I think we should consider this as Google always has the right to change its algorithm. So it simply means that Google NEED NOT to hide any secrets to the public as we must know that after all what Google wants is the SERPs to be the best of user experience. ( If you really think this in the long-run and lasting SEO results on your business )

I agree with OP and Matt Cutts and also you can always find useful information on Googleblog itself. Perhaps, there are so many controversies upon the "Google Secrets" or whatever you wanna call it. But I really do feel that people always over complicate so many things. I don't think there are so many secrets here.

I can make an example right now to against most of the truth or proof that SEO gurus always claim about. For example, a brand new site created based on an high authority government department. Google may rank it 1st spot on a particular competitive category/keyword overnight just for that because of its "authority". Assuming that site doesn't even have any on-page factors/off-page factors done, but just its "AUTHORITY". It simply says that there is always "exception" and many other "factors".

With that said, I don't think Matt Cutts is BS-ing or whatsoever you wanna call him a liar, a hyped guy or anything. I do trust him on that personally, don't take my words, maybe it's just me.


After all, if what Matt claims is true then there are lots of "SEO Softwares" being built are going on a wrong direction as they take edu/gov links as a SEO competitive analysis factor.


Perhaps some of you may find what I just said is complete BS, but I do have my own point there and I do agree with OP and Matt Cutts.

Peace.

PS / : The simplicity in my opinion is "a link is always a link", it doesn't really need to worry much about where it comes from as long as you're not a typical Black Hat spammer. Of course high-authority backlinks are good, but as I said "a link is always a link". After all, whoever builds natural links and good links in the long-run wins the race.

All Matt was saying is that, all things being equal, there is no difference from a .gov backlink and a .com backlink. PLEASE REMEMBER that Google ranks PAGES not SITES. So if a particular page is reputable and links to you, the page it links to becomes "more reputable" and thus your page becomes more likely to rank higher. There is no smoke and mirrors and no shortcuts, the domain name extension makes no difference.

@benjamin12 Your not seeing through the forest for the trees. The .edu and .gov typically have higher pagerank because they are very old domain that have a tremendous amout of links, not because of the domain extension. Google ranks the individual pages on the site, not the site itself. Having a link from a PAGE that is a "PR2" carries the same value as a link coming from a "PR2" page on whitehouse.gov. The domain name, and subsequently the domain extension, is totally irrelevant.

I think Matt does a great job as a spokesperson for Google. He does his best to explain things in general terms, and at the same time, not deal with specifics. As far as the algorithm is concerned, whether it be 200 items, or 400, they all will not carry equal weight they are always tweaking things, probably for their own experiment to see what affects what.
Think of it this way. Look at Google or search engines as a house. They all start with the footing, foundation, floors, walls, ceilings and a roof (in general terms). The foundation for search algorithms may never change. It would be too much a task to undertake. Having said that, all the tweaks made to the algorithm along the way, maybe related to adding an addition to that house, new windows, new paint, shutters...decorative and or functional things. But the foundation, is still there. Hence the foundation of the google algorithm will always relfelct inbound links, and relevant content.

The story is tricky.I would say .Gov and .edu links holds a good value bcoz they generally have a good amount of backlinks with them.



"Do not Go by someones words, use your brains"

Please man. He works for Google, and do you expect him to
tell people their algo?

People have conducted test and experiment, and and numerous
times it has been proved that EDU and GOV links work!

Period.

I would also add that .edu and .gov websites tend to have fewer outbound links than the typical .com, .net and possibly .org (especially commercial .org) so more "juice" is passed through those outbound links.

In my overall experience, I have not seen much difference with .edu or .gov backlinks. But Yes, those links certainly carry some weight. People only have emphasized more into those links, which is not necessary.

I think that .gov and .edu links may be statistically more likely to help you since these types of sites tend to be authority sites, free of garbage. In other words, while having the .edu or .gov isn't an advantage per se, such sites tend to have certain qualities that make them a good source of links.

Don't believe that everything Matt Cutts says is true. After all he is a Google employee. Testing things should be the best way to decide whether something really works in SEO or not.

A REAL EDU link(link from a university or popular educational institution) carries weight but sites created for sole purposes of creating backlinks and having .edu extension would not do any good.