Links for edu and gov sites
-
So it is general knowledge that links from .edu and .gov sites are valued higher by Google.
So, I hired some guys on freelance sites to help me buildlinks and get some love from SERPS.
But one thing I notice quite often is that some of these links are actually like *.edu.tw (with a international TLD after .edu)
What is your thoughts on links like that, do they have ANY edu value?
-
I'm afraid I have to generally agree with Dejan SEO. First off, the evidence that .edu and .gov links are really valued higher (at least over the last couple of years) is limited at best. SEOmoz did a correlation analysis in 2010 that suggested .gov links only slightly outperformed .com, and .edu under-performed .com -
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analysis-of-ranking-elements
Part of that may be due to the fact that higher education sites have been relentlessly spammed. It's just too easy to set up a profile on a deep page and get a cheap .edu link. That's the core problem, too. In general, a .gov or .edu site may have more trust or authority than the average .com (although I can't even prove that). That doesn't mean, though, that EVERY link on a .edu is worth more than EVERY link on a .com. That's a gross oversimplification that ignores the dozens of factors that define a link's value. See Rand's post here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
If you have a deep link on a .edu site on a page with no inbound links that links out to 400 sites, all of which are irrelevant and spammy, that link will be crap. It doesn't matter that it's on a .edu. That page may not even be indexed. Chasing .edu or .gov links ignores a lot of other factors.
Is suspect the international links are treated much like their .com equivalents. If your site operates in the US and is in English, and you get a .edu.tw (or .com.tw) link from a Taiwanese site written in Mandarin Chinese, that link is going to be low-value in the vast majority of cases.
-
Sorry this gets me upset. What a load of bull*#& about .edu links. The only thing that's resulted from this myth is increased rate of spam on educational institutions around the world. I wish people would stop doing this.
Yes .edu domains tend to have good trust from search engines, but that doesn't mean that if you create an empty profile and whack in your link Google will factor this into their link graph, especially if you use duplicate or no content at all. Same goes for forum/comment spam.
To get great value from .edu domains (like with anything else) you would have to have a nice editorial link connected to another page or home page, pagerank and not 1000 outgoing links to viagra and payday loans. To get these types of links you would need to earn them through contribution, engagement or become some type of sponsor. Either way it isn't simple, quick or cheap.
If you base your link building on tactics like the one you describe above you're giving Google search quality team something to penalise you for if they get to review your website at some point in the future.
-
My instinct says that (if you are .com) they would be far less useful because they are not from your country - unless you really are targeting international search which I have no experience in. Of course if your TLD matches, you're golden..
-
If you think logical like google thinks yes it have. Because is is still edu site but is just local.I think if you will like to rank good in one country you should purchase edu links from local sites.Maybe this kind of links will rank you in taiwan and not global.I didnt try it to tell you for shure.I hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
AllTop Linking Me to Other Sites Feeds, Webmasters Reporting Lots of Broken Links
I submitted my blog to All Top awhile ago and something seems to be wrong with their feed. They're sending people to mysite.com/truth-o-meter.com/this-is-a-post. It's not just truth-o-meter either. I'm getting links that are supposed to go to all kinds of political blogs. As a result, I'm getting a ton of broken links reported on Google Webmasters. I couldn't find any real support option on alltop.com, and when I log in, there are no sites for me to manage. Instead, I resubmitted the site with the correct feed address and in the comments, I mentioned the problem. All I got was a message saying the site was rejected. I believe because I already added the site. But I'm thinking they didn't pay attention to the comments. (In fact the message may have gone through an auto-filter considering how quickly it was rejected.) Is there a way to solve this? Is this a situation in which I would use the disavow tool? If All Top continues to create bad links, how do I stop the issue once and for all? Thanks!
Link Building | | eglove0 -
How do I find links that link to several competitor sites?
I want to find linking pages that link to several of my competitors. Those are likely to be lists of tools I can also add my website to. My application is a dashboard tool/kanban board. So if I find a page linking both to say kanbannery.com and kanbanflow.com it will be likely to be a collection of links to kanban tools, ad my application can be relatively easy added. Magestic SEO has a "clique hunter" - is there anything similar in MOZ suite of tools?
Link Building | | kanbanchi.com0 -
DA of External Link Sites
Curious as to how you separate a "good" link from a "bad" one. I go through Open Site Explorer and see a variety of sites linking to our page. Some have good Domain/Page Authority and others do not. When looking for links, where do you determine whether a link from a specific page will help/hurt you in terms of their DA/PA? Translated another way: How much DA/PA does a site/page need to have before you decide it will pass good link juice to yours via a link?
Link Building | | Greatmats0 -
Link to my site not showing up in Open Site Explorer
If a link to my site on another domain does not appear in the list of links gathered by the Open Site Explorer, does that mean that this backlink will not be crawled by search engine bots? Is there anything I should do to make sure that this link IS crawled and/or recognized by search engines coughGooglecough?
Link Building | | robgleslie0 -
Does Seomoz Help Me Identify The Most Linked Articles From My Competitor Site
Does Seomoz Help Me Identify The Most Linked Articles From My Competitor Site -- Is there a feature to help me sort the results by this parameter I would like to set ?
Link Building | | helpwanted0 -
Do links within imbeddable widgets carry link juice?
I'm dipping my toes into infographic design. On of my desired outcomes is to gain links by having other sites embed my graphic. I'm considering using Tableau's interactive data visualization software to do so; thus creating a widget, embedding it on my blog, and including the embed code for others to post. Is it possible to include a juice passing link in such an infographic? I know its possible to include links inside the tableau graphic but not sure if they have straight SEO value. If these links are not juice passing would it be better to go with a simple image link that passes value?
Link Building | | JesseCWalker1 -
Link Churn - where have all my links gone?
I am sure most of you have asked yourself the question I'm asking right now.. Where have all my links gone? I am starting to get twitchy now. I would estimate we have lost around 60% of our links in the past 3 weeks. Does anyone have any comeback stories? Feel like I am back to the start again. I have made a number of changes on the site not least removing a reciprical link page.. that had over 200 links on it but from reading one of Rand's tweets is it true that linking out could be good again?
Link Building | | robertrRSwalters0