Value of a .edu or .gov link?
-
I am looking to hire a company to start a backlink campaign for me. In my search I have stumbled across one which essentially charges a good amount of money to secure backlinks on .edu and .gov sites ($500 per link). This would be in context links. This company is an SEOMOZ recommended company so I am thinking the links will be well earned and not simple paid for to the university as to prevent future issues.
My question is, how can I put a value on these links for my website? Like lets says I have a DA of 1 right now, and I get one backlink with DA of 70 PA of 70, how will that effect my DA? How can I quantify how many .edu .gov links I will need before I start to place? I realize I will need some more mixed up there so it does not seem unnatural, but my business has a lot to do with universities and government entities.
I am trying to figure out how I can calculate the value of these links to me
-
The value of any one link is tough to measure, and it's often not what we'd hoped for. I think Google tends to look at the entire profile and often depreciates new links, adding in their value over time. The days where a couple of strong .edu or .gov links would make all the difference are in the past, IMO.
I don't know the company or offering, but this focus on .edu and .gov links and $500/link just makes me uneasy. You mention the links are contextual and that education/government are relevant to your business, but my gut reaction is that this may not be money well spent. For the price of a few links, you could build content that might attract hundreds of links.
Valuing any given link is an educated guess at best, but Rand had a decent post about it a while back (post is from 2009, but much of it is still relevant):
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/17-ways-search-engines-judge-the-value-of-a-link
-
Hi Demetrios,
It's difficult to say exactly how it'll affect your DA or PA - like PageRank there's a considerable number of factors and contexts that build that ranking.
Domain Authority is in part built up from your MozTrust score. The MozTrust is roughly calculated by measuring how many sites sit between your website and a trusted website. Educational and Government websites tend to be considered trusted websites, so if they link to you directly the MozTrust there is very high indeed.
Be aware though, you shouldn't build your site's success on the back of one or two trusted links. You need diversity and as many trusted relevant sites as possible to "back your credentials up" to Google and other search engines.
I know that's vague, but I hope it helps. Learn about how MozTrust works.
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
-
What are the SEO value of revolving or rotating lists of links?
What are the SEO value of revolving or rotating lists of links? For example the links at the bottom of the homepage of inlandnwopera.com. The links are based in images and I am not really sure Google would pick them up but they do appear on ahrefs.com. Thank you.
Link Building | | RandyHT0 -
Spam links - what would you do?
Hello, A few months back our website was hacked which we noticed quickly and got fixed. However, there still is a lot of dodgy backlinks, linking to the spam pages. They come up in Webmaster Tools, Moz and SEM rush. According to the Moz Spam tool, a few of them have been given 7 flags which Moz suggests gives a 30% chance of being penalised by Google. The website has great rankings (position 1-3 in most targeted keywords) so I am scared of doing something that will harm the rankings, however I also aware that Google may do an update which could take these spam links into account. I have no experience of using the disavow tool but from reading up about it, it should only be used as a last resort. So my question is - what would you do?
Link Building | | N2Digital0 -
Is there an extra SEO benefit for linking to pages that link to you?
Currently working on a link-building strategy and have gotten a few mentions. Just curious if there is any SEO benefits of linking back to the pages my site was mentioned and linked on? Would love to hear your thoughts, thanks!
Link Building | | Derrald0 -
Content Strategy - High Value on Lots of Sites vs. High Value on One Site
Good afternoon Mozzers. I have a discussion based question and I'd be interested to know your thoughts. I currently implement a content strategy where we create a series of high value How-to written articles, relevant to our audience and then work at getting them placed on multiple high value websites. I have just been offered an opportunity with a PR6 domain to create a similar series of content but place it all on their site with links back to ours through a dedicated section. So my question is would I gain more value from small amounts of great content in lots of places vs. a lot of great content in on place? Effectively 1 link from 20 sites vs. 20 links from 1 site.
Link Building | | RobertChapman0 -
How do you remove links TO your site?
Lots of old links to our wine rack store site from many years ago, how do I get these removed? block them? Not sure if Penguin got us because of these....
Link Building | | AmazingUniverse560 -
Link building
Hello all ! I would love some opinions about one Link Building technical aspect from SEOs, link builders ... How important is the number of outgoing links on the page you have the opportunity to place a link ? (from a scale of 1-10 / what about where dose this factor fits overall with your check list , as important to consider as far as link building) Would you place a link on a page with 200+ outgoing external links if the page is ok (not involved in selling links, all links are related with the subject, target page, anchor text etc) or you would go with a link on a 10-15 links per page but not that 'powerful' and not that related (not spammy but more general on the subject that can contain links to some other non related resources). Eg: Option 1: www.whatever-name.com/links.html the entire domain is about x. It has 250 links in that page (in the links.html) all links on the links.html pages are somehow related / resources with x. Your link can be placed with an anchor text related with x that will target a page on your site related with x. Domain page rank : 6 (as a general indicator), Page PR, the links.html one, PR: 2 Option 2: www.some-other-name.com/x-is-so-great the entire domain is NOT about x, just the page. It has 5..10 links in that page (external links more or less related with x - but not spammy) Your link can be placed with an anchor text related with x that will target a page on your site related with x. Domain page rank : 3 (as a general indicator), Page PR, the links.html one, PR: 1 What's your best option ? Thanks !
Link Building | | eyepaq1 -
Value of a link from very large profile site
Hello We have an opportunity to get a link from a very large traffic site. It comes with a price tag, and Im wondering if it is worth it. Is it ok to mention the page and cost? It is the 5th largest internet site. Would be on their benefactors page. There are many other sites linking from the page, and its obvious they are on there for the link value. I know sometimes one link can do wonders for rankings, where thousands of others can not. But wondering if there is any way to quanitfy this. Is it worth it for the value of the backlink? If we link to the home page, the link juice (alot I hope) would pass through to the deeper pages, and increase their rankings for their target keywords? Thanks for your advise. Sam
Link Building | | Impact-2015550 -
Article Links
I write and publish artcles. Typically I publish them on a few top article sites like EZineArticles. The articles then get picked up by other sites, often numbering in the hundreds. All of the articles are published with a link back to our website using a keyword. Are there any SEO risks in this type of link proliferation?
Link Building | | JimSkychief0