Member Avatar for stymiee

Matt Cutts recently confirmed what many of us have been saying all along: .edu and .gov links are worth no more then any other link. Just watch his videos and see.

http://www.websitepublisher.net/blog/2006/08/03/a-google-myth-busted/

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by ketan1

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Useful, practical checklist and tactics to take away from the / conversation — focus on page-level signals and risk control, not on the TLD itself.

  • Evaluate the linking page, not just the domain: topical relevance, in‑content placement (editorial > footer/profile), visible organic traffic and referring domains, and whether the page is indexed/crawlable.
  • Inspect link context: useful surrounding text, natural anchor variety (brand, partial, URL), and whether the link is marked rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored", or rel="ugc".
  • Watch for manipulation signals: identical exact‑match anchors across many links, sitewide/footer placements, or sudden spikes in unrelated backlinks.
  • Measure before/after with tools (Search Console + a backlink provider) and keep a removal/disavow plan for truly toxic links.

For anchor‑text and over‑optimization guidance, see practical anchor‑text strategies and how to analyze distributions. Advanced anchor‑text guidance — Search Engine Journal. (searchenginejournal.com)

Avoid paid/undisclosed links and link schemes; mark sponsored placements properly and follow Google’s spam/link guidance. Google on link spam and rel attributes. (developers.google.com) If a site suffers from spammy incoming links, the disavow tool is an advanced remediation (use cautiously). . ()

Quick prospecting queries to find relevant .edu/.gov resource pages (replace KEYWORD):

site:.edu intitle:resources "KEYWORD"
site:.gov inurl:links "KEYWORD"
site:.edu "KEYWORD" "research" -forum

Use those queries as a starting point, then run the candidate URL through Search Console / Ahrefs / SEMrush to check referring domains, traffic and whether the page is editorial and indexed. See Google’s documentation on using search operators and crawl/index signals for discovery. [How Google discovers and evaluates pages — Search Central]. (developers.google.com)

Bottom line: pursuing a reputable, topically relevant editorial link—where the page itself already earns links and traffic—is worth the effort regardless of TLD. Monitor anchor diversity and compliance; avoid shortcuts that risk manual actions. (developers.google.com)

Member Avatar for ocinternetadv

We just spoke about this in our incoming links thread from several days ago.

I'm not sure that your post sends the right message. You can't dismiss the fact that, as you mentioned, .edu and .gov sites are not weighed any differently from normal sites. However, if you listen to what Matt says, he admittedly announced that .edu and .gov sites have higher PageRank and isn't that what we SEO's are after?

It is a myth that .edu and .gov get special credit. It is not a myth that they have higher PageRank.

My advise is to everyone would be to disregard the statement that these sites are worthless. In fact, I'd advise that you keep pursuing .edu and .gov because they have higher PageRank. Just make sure that the page linking to you is related to your page, preferably with the keywords you're targeting in the Title and the content. Also make sure that your keywords are actually in the link text for optimal results.

All the Best,
Steve Wiideman

Member Avatar for stymiee

You're missing the point. Google does not give .edu or .gov pages any extra PR boost nor do links from those pages receive a PR boost. They have higher PR for the very reasons I outlined in that other thread: because they tend to be relevant and useful pages and thus tend to have more links pointing to them. That's the point I made (and exactly what Matt Cutts confirmed in his video). The fact that they are .edu and .gov domains are meaningless in Google's eyes.

So the advice you should be giving is to seek any link from a relevant page with quality anchor text regardless of the domain extension. A link from a .edu page that isn't about the same topic as your page and doesn't use your anchor text has extremely little value and is worth far less then a link from an on-topic page with the anchor text containing the keywords you hope to rank well for.

BTW, the "worthless" part of the title was to get people's attention. :)

We just spoke about this in our incoming links thread from several days ago.

I'm not sure that your post sends the right message. You can't dismiss the fact that, as you mentioned, .edu and .gov sites are not weighed any differently from normal sites. However, if you listen to what Matt says, he admittedly announced that .edu and .gov sites have higher PageRank and isn't that what we SEO's are after?

It is a myth that .edu and .gov get special credit. It is not a myth that they have higher PageRank.

My advise is to everyone would be to disregard the statement that these sites are worthless. In fact, I'd advise that you keep pursuing .edu and .gov because they have higher PageRank. Just make sure that the page linking to you is related to your page, preferably with the keywords you're targeting in the Title and the content. Also make sure that your keywords are actually in the link text for optimal results.

All the Best,
Steve Wiideman

Member Avatar for ocinternetadv

Agreed. I like the 'worthless' strategy to get your topic read (I may even it use it in the future). I think everyone's got the point now. :)

Member Avatar for ketan1

Hi

I do not think EDu and Gov links are treated any diffrenet from normal ones.

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