EDU-Links

[becool]

Historically, I think, EDU links (and GOV links) were the bee's knees. Does that hold true today? I would imagine that the "weight" of EDU links may have been diluted given how aggressively they have been targeted by SEOs and webmasters, but the metrics, even putting to one side the "EDU" designation appear to be, from my vantage, generally compelling (e.g. DA, DR, TF, CF, RD, etc.) I am interested in your thoughts on this topic, as well as your thoughts on the following talking points:

1. Have EDU links been devalued?
2. Do EDU links in and of themselves raise scrutiny?
3. Is there a particular best practice with respect to acquiring EDU links to the extent they raise scrutiny? (Please keep in mind I am not referring to the method in which the links are earned (i.e. I am not asking about the best practice for acquiring them or how to acquire them) but, rather, other factors such as quantity, velocity and other such factors that may come to mind?)
4. Do the "other" factors with respect to acquiring non-EDU links apply with equal force to EDU links (such as making things appear natural, earned and not purchased, stolen or otherwise misappropriated) apply?

Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between the types of EDU links.

I appreciate your insight and contribution.

 

[dsoul]

It's like anything for links. A link on an edu forum profile isn't going to help you, forget it.

But if your site has been listed on a resources page compiled by a member of staff or student, and is on top level pages, then yes, you are going to still get authority.

 

[becool]

But if your site has been listed on a resources page compiled by a member of staff or student, and is on top level pages, then yes, you are going to still get authority.

Good clarification. I am not referring to forum profiles, but rather links on resource pages (or similar pages) that are compiled and moderated by the schools.

 

[Ryuzaki]

1. Have EDU links been devalued?

I suspect that they may have had their Trust Rank values brought down to a more realistic level in relation to SEO activity, but they'll still pass big Page Rank values most of the time. You can't really change that unless you plan on penalizing a site and deindexing it. They need to keep that legitimate for the link graph to work. I'll say more related to this in the next answer.

2. Do EDU links in and of themselves raise scrutiny?

Not at all, in my opinion.

What you have is the difference between a contextual link, a forum link, a sub-domain student blog link, blog comments within those, etc. Google likely has nearly every footprint figured out to know whether something is user generated or not. UGC should have nofollow tags applied (like they do on this forum if the post is by anyone who's not a mod), but they don't always have them. Google has probably identified certain platforms guilty of not applying a nofollow tag and does it for them, if these platforms are widely used enough.

So I think some links may be nofollowed for you when some obscure but widely used platform doesn't do it. We know they can do this, since that's what the disavow file does.

But as far as there being any scrutiny? Nah. I can't imagine any scenario where you'd mark some of the most trusted and hard to obtain links as needing examination. No scrutiny just for the sake of it being .edu. But if you spam up a ton of forums and blog comments, then probably, like any other time.

The algorithm seems to be able to sort out virality and spamming, even though both involve an explosion of links. I'd guess it has to do with the type of links and platforms. Virality has a mixture of forums posts, blog comments, contextual links, and social shares. Spamming usually has crap like forum profiles, blog comments, trackbacks, guestbooks, web 2.0 and open registration posts, etc.

3. Is there a particular best practice with respect to acquiring EDU links to the extent they raise scrutiny?

I don't think so. If you're getting worthwhile ones, you won't get so many that it raises a red flag of any kind. You might see some bouncing due to the typical page rank influx bouncing and the randomization factor. But that's to be expected.

4. Do the "other" factors with respect to acquiring non-EDU links apply with equal force to EDU links apply?

Sure. But when people talk about link velocity and anchor text ratios and all that, they're specifically talking about acquiring 1000's of links over days and far more over months. Link velocity isn't even a real discussion if you're going for high value links, because you can't scale that to those numbers.

Even sensible spammers don't even worry about link velocity any more because they started tiering links many years ago. You get all the juice without the velocity and anchor text balancing problems.

I wouldn't worry about stuff like velocity. But anchor text ratios are relevant still.

 

[jstover77]

I don't think .edu or .gov links are weighted any higher in Google's algo, but a good .edu/gov link tends to be highly relevant and has a natural link profile. Fundamental shit really. A good quality link is a good quality link.

 

[seoauthority]

I don't think .edu or .gov links are weighted any higher in Google's algo, but a good .edu/gov link tends to be highly relevant and has a natural link profile. Fundamental shit really. A good quality link is a good quality link.

Agree with the above poster. I would add, however, that EDU links tend to be on more aged domains with richer and deeper content and that has some weight in Google algo's, IMO. Of course there are new edu and gov links popping up all the time, but its a starting point, and if you do a decent amount of backlink analysis, you can uncover the good from the weak.

 

[GarrettGraff]

I think its worth mentioning where you're getting the link from on the property can affect how much value you get out of said link.

For instance, you may be lucky enough to nail down a link from wellknownivyleagueschool.edu/health/dont-forget-a-rubber which would presumably carry a fair bit of value versus studentsubdomain.wellknownivyleagueschool.edu/blog/tatertots4ever

I see a lot of people selling links on mentioned subdomains and after I've researched them I found that those subdomains don't really carry any value and are taken advantage of.

 

[Jeff Hunt]

When the edu link discussion comes up my mind automatically jumps to scholarship links since that has been the most discussed and abused methodology. I'm curious whether those who've commented in this thread about the value of EDU links would say the same thing about scholarship links in particular? I've seen so many spammy scholarship pages recently that is difficult to believe that Google wouldn't intentionally devalue them.

 

[Samwise89]

Here's a piece of insight that's pretty straightforward. Unless Google is willing to flat out lie, this seems to settle it:

 

[DKurtz.me]

They're not necessarily higher value, but the metrics on them are pretty good and usually stringent.

I've gotten several pieces of content published for clients on places like Johns Hopkins, and the authority from that one page alone has been astronomical for their site authority, both DA and PA.

Usually, it's a subdomain like research.department.johnshopkins.edu or equivalent, which seems to go over really well.