Wednesday, February 4, 2009

EDU Links Are Still Desired And Valuable

By Julie Johnson

It has long been accepted knowledge that EDU and GOV links are highly valuable links that can produce exceptional results. Leading search engines, however, deny any such thing. They claim their search engines don't place any higher value on EDU than any other suffix. Results prove otherwise and one must wonder why they protest so loudly.

Everyone says that EDU links are valuable. Forums buzz still with ideas for garnering that prized EDU link. And as Google continues to deny the value, some people are buying it.

Leading search engines flat out say they do not value the .edu link over others. Matt Cutts said it way back in 2005. Even in May 2008 on a thread, we read that there is no additional weight added to an EDU link. Numerous threads pop up with a naysayer claiming that obtaining an EDU link is a waste of energy. One must wonder why there is so much naysaying.

Why is that? The EDU value can be discounted somewhat by several factors: irrelevant sidebar links, links not in content, sitewide links (for example, links often sold in college papers-- why do you think they are so cheap?) A link in content on an EDU or GOV site however, with or without page rank on that page, is quite a value.

So the EDU link persists, and becomes harder and harder to obtain. classified ads, college paper sitewide links, bribing a professor... they can be done still but the value is suffering due to the overuse, and more importantly, the lack of relevancy of the link. Remember that the traditional link weights will still count even on an EDU. - 21151

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