Edu Still Among Best Text Links
Search engines are known for collecting information and using that information to rank certain sites higher than others. When they find a link on a high rated site, that link will be valued higher than if the same exact link was found on a lower ranked site. Links from sites with a .gov or .edu suffix are considered trusted and authority sites and are considered very valuable. Also, links that come from high ranked PageRank sites come with high value.
Most in the SEO industry will agree that .edu links have a higher value with the search engines, but there are always a few who disagree. In fact, it is just not true that .edu links are rated the same as other links by the search engines. A simple test will determine this: choose 2 sites, add standard links to one and .edu links to the other. Check your rankings and then run the same test several times. You’ll see that .edu text links do make a difference in site placement.
More evidence that .edu or .gov links are not treated the same by the search engines is the fact that they’re often ranked in the top 10, even when those sites are outdated or irrelevant. The fact is that .edu repeatedly ranks higher than standard links.
It is probably true that the algorithm is not written to put a blanket boost on any link from a site with .edu as the tld. If someone were to start a brand new university tomorrow, links from that site may not be valuable. But the fact is that most of the .edu sites are very old, very big, full of information, trusted sites, with tens of thousands of inbound links and high PR. It is this reason that the search engines seems to be placing more importance on the links.
As with anything, there’s no way to get everybody to agree, so the naysayers who disagree about .edu links may just need to agree to disagree with the rest of the pack. Most SEO providers are seeing positive results as are we. And as long as our clients rankings are climbing to the top using quality content links, then we won’t likely abandon something that works.
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