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
-
My site is linked from over 900 "The Globe"-domains - disavow or not?
Hi! As some of you may be familiar with, there is a giant spam-network with the same design and same page title on all domains: "The Globe - The world's most visited web pages". For example: theglobe.at
Link Building | | Sindre
theglobe.co.za
www.internet-search.us I've now discovered that over 900 of these spam-domains link to my site. My plan was of course to disavow them all, but Google is explicit on telling me to be careful. «Only disavow if you are certain that the links are damaging to your rankings». And to be honest, I'm not sure. Also: it seems drastic to disavow almost a thousand pages. I'm afraid to mess something up. What would you do?3 -
Link Relevance vs Link Authority ?
Hi guys, I have a quick question regarding some low quality links my site is getting. From the information in Open Site Explorer, the website Im talking about has a page authority of 16 while the domain authority is 11\. These are very low quality scores in my oppinion and Im thinking of removing them with Google Disavow Tool. The thing is that, although the domain is low quality, the links have relevance as they're in the same business sector as us. More exactly, the name of the domain is taxisavona and the company I work for is also a taxi company. So, now I`m thinking, should I disavow the link because of it's low scores or should I leave it because it is relevant to our business ? Thank you in advance! Best regards, Tiberiu Iavorenciuc
Link Building | | Tiberiu0 -
Around 10% of our backlink profile is made up of branded links from one Japanese site, do we disavow?
We have recently changed domain names and all the links are going to the old domain. We are wondering whether we should disavow them all as they are the majority of our backlink profile at the moment.
Link Building | | cttgroup0 -
Does the twitter link shortening service reduce link value (strength).
We have many SEO team members that use Twitters link shortening service, will this reduce the strength or value of the page to be indexed? I ask this cause the displayed URL isn't the actual page it is going to and would like to make appropriate changes to improve our company's SEO For example: http://t.co/zHu8vIcjPx is going to page http://4wheelonline.com/atv/QuadBoss.107503 Thank you for your assistance.
Link Building | | WebRiverGroup0 -
Should I work on links to a specific page or site in general?
Hi Guys, I'm trying to have my page rank better for "sell my car Houston". I'm about to start working on getting links to our site and my question is should I work on getting links to that specific page or would it be OK to just get links to the home page (same seo effect)? Specific page: http://www.motorsonwheels.com/pages/sell-my-car-in-houston-tx Home page: http://www.motorsonwheels.com Thanks! -Nash
Link Building | | nkabbara0 -
Which link should I use for link building?
I have an article which have high rank on Google. But recent, I use mod rewrite url so this article have new url. old: mywebsite.com/c1/p-1 new: mywebsite.com/c-e/p-1 Now, google is indexing old url. I want to ask when I build linking to my site, which link should I use for link building? I should build linking for new url or old url. Thanks
Link Building | | sonzin13040 -
Anything to bear in mind when setting up a related 'family' of sites with linking between them?
We've spun out content from a single finance related news/analysis site (running for about 2 years) into several topic-specific sites on individual topics (markets, investment etc etc). They're all on the same server, use the same CMS (using a multisite setup), and share largely the same codebase, though obviously with customisations for the site names, and we've made sure each has a distinct identity. At the bottom of each page, we're linking to 'latest posts on the network', aggregating the 5 most recent posts from all the sites and displaying them in the footer. We've obviously made sure the actual content is completely unique on each site though. Just wondering if anyone has any tips about ensuring we don't dilute our SEO too much. and how to maximise our effectiveness?
Link Building | | topnotch180 -
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