And I mean an actual statistically accurate split test?

My experience is they're not worth fuck all, more than regular links from other domain extensions, aside from the obvious benefit in terms of link diversity.

What's your experience?

Subscribed.

The main problem with testing with particular type of link is you can't rank a site just with one type of links.So when u do wide range of backlinking it's hard to determine what actually clicked.SEO is 90% common sense and common sense tells me edu links has little more value then general extension.

Would love the ? too this also...?

Originally Posted by wahidpolin

The main problem with testing with particular type of link is you can't rank a site just with one type of links.So when u do wide range of backlinking it's hard to determine what actually clicked.SEO is 90% common sense and common sense tells me edu links has little more value then general extension.

I'm not saying RANK a site with the help of just one (type of) link. I'm saying make 2 web2.0 blogs, spin the text, make sure they're equally optimized on-page and slam one with .EDU comment backlinks and the other with non-EDU ones. Then see which one climbs higher. Shouldn't be that hard, should it?

As for SEO being common sense... My common sense tells me .EDU links have been so spammed to hell and back that they no longer hold any extra value over regular links.

Originally Posted by wahidpolin

The main problem with testing with particular type of link is you can't rank a site just with one type of links.So when u do wide range of backlinking it's hard to determine what actually clicked.SEO is 90% common sense and common sense tells me edu links has little more value then general extension.

This. You won't see any results if you will just only build edu links. I have tested lots of campaigns of edu links and I can say that they have bigger value compared to other links, they have kind of "authority". You may heard lots of times, Matt says in his videos: "If you get backlink for example from CNN, BBC, it will have a great value!" so basically, he means authority of domains. And almost all .edu domains have authority.

I've seen lots of big jumps in SERPs. But again, if you think that edu links is the only type of links you should get and you will be dominating SERPs, you are wrong. It's all about diversify

Originally Posted by HarrisonHill

This. You won't see any results if you will just only build edu links. I have tested lots of campaigns of edu links and I can say that they have bigger value compared to other links, they have kind of "authority". You may heard lots of times, Matt says in his videos: "If you get backlink for example from CNN, BBC, it will have a great value!" so basically, he means authority of domains. And almost all .edu domains have authority.

I've seen lots of big jumps in SERPs. But again, if you think that edu links is the only type of links you should get and you will be dominating SERPs, you are wrong. It's all about diversify

Being a seller of .EDU backlinks, you'd have to be REALLY fucking stupid to say anything else.

That being said, you still didn't answer my OP question. Just because you don't know how to do a proper split test doesn't mean it can't be done. See my post above for a suggestion.

I agree with you I think they're no better than any other sites. If it's a quality edu site I believe it has the same weight as any other quality website. I think it's just a myth that gets regurgitated like a lot of other seo info but I haven't tested this so wtf do I know heh.

Originally Posted by DamageX

Being a seller of .EDU backlinks, you'd have to be REALLY fucking stupid to say anything else.

That being said, you still didn't answer my OP question. Just because you don't know how to do a proper split test doesn't mean it can't be done. See my post above for a suggestion.

Well you may be actually true. I'm selling links and one type is edu links, and I will definitely promote what I'm selling. But believe me or not, it's on you. Edu links have authority, they have more value than same PR, same obl .com page.

Saying that edu's are spammed to hell out is little bid weird for me. Everything has spammed to hell out. You can rarely find any resource which is open for getting links, which is ********, and not spammed at the same time. Everything's being spammed today. Web 2.0 - spammed, comments- spammed, social networks - spammed... etc. But this doesn't mean getting links from them won't help. I don't say that posting comment on page with OBL like 200 will help though lol.

Anyways, edu's have kind of authority, and they tend to help more than .com backlinks from pages with same PR, OBL and other factors

I don't think you can make a sweeping statement to say that "edu's have kind of authority", because unless you have conclusive evidence, I don't believe that's true.

I think you need to be more specific about the type of .edu links you're testing, but in general, I think it's the type of site and quality of the link that matters, rather than the TLD. If a link's easy to get then it's likely to have less value; for example, forum profile .edu links have just as little value as any other TLD. I've found that a contextual link from a popular (authority) news site (.com) can have just as much value as a similar link from a high authority educational establishment (.edu).

Originally Posted by lancis

In my experience they hold no additional value. However, they are brandable and can be sold to noobs for a greater price.

Ding ding ding!

In my experience they hold no additional value. However, they are brandable and can be sold to noobs for a greater price.

If I was the owner of Google I would probably separate niches. Edu holds value when you're searching for scientific terms. When you search for sex .XXX holds better authority. However, I'm not the owner and my experience in a limited number of niches tells me that .edu is no better than .com.

here are some edus

Code:

http://blogs.umass.edu/acalandr/2008/03/10/cultural-incident-1/


http://blogs.umass.edu/amcgille/2008/04/16/washington-post-most-commented-articles/




http://blogs.umass.edu/georgemo/archives/15/

they make difference??

It depends on the type of .edu link and how you use it. I have for example access to one .edu forum, which is quite activ in terms of posts. I placed there a long thread (means lot of content) and put one link to inner page there. People answered my question, and I keep on the discussion. I believe that this gave the link some power and it in fact solely increase my ranking for that keyword from #7 to #5...

You can also do some damage with profile .edu links, but again, you need to know how to work with it. If you simply put 3 links to your money site there (what 90% of edu service providers do), it will not help you any way.

Originally Posted by Kikerinka

It depends on the type of .edu link and how you use it. I have for example access to one .edu forum, which is quite activ in terms of posts. I placed there a long thread (means lot of content) and put one link to inner page there. People answered my question, and I keep on the discussion. I believe that this gave the link some power and it in fact solely increase my ranking for that keyword from #7 to #5...

You can also do some damage with profile .edu links, but again, you need to know how to work with it. If you simply put 3 links to your money site there (what 90% of edu service providers do), it will not help you any way.

Right, but you can get the exact same results with any domain extension, as long as the sites have the same authority. My point is the .EDU extension doesn't do jack shit to further enhance that authority.

Yeah man, that's exactly what's happening in the SEO world.

Some "Guru" claims that EDU links are awesome in his blog, just because he thinks they are. Then everybody blindly follow him.

Someone should make a wide research about this. I think I will!

Originally Posted by WizIMS

Yeah man, that's exactly what's happening in the SEO world.

Some "Guru" claims that EDU links are awesome in his blog, just because he thinks they are. Then everybody blindly follow him.

Says the guy using GURU as his title.

Originally Posted by WizIMS

Someone should make a wide research about this. I think I will!

Kudos, let me know if you want me do do some xrumer blasts for you to help.

Agree I have seen no difference in using normal links to edu gov etc. Maybe 5 years ago but Google catches onto things...

Originally Posted by DamageX

Right, but you can get the exact same results with any domain extension, as long as the sites have the same authority. My point is the .EDU extension doesn't do jack shit to further enhance that authority.

I agree in general with what you're saying, BUT an .edu is more likely to have that trust / authority from lengthy domain age, backlinks from high impact journals and news sources that in turn have a lot of backlinks etc, than a regular CNO domain.

Also security is generally lax because often parts of a .edu will be run by researchers or academic staff who are just trying to do their work and aren't looking too closely at people's spam attempts. CMSs get thrown up and left as the default just because someone needs something to use with their students, or someone sets up blog on their personal webspace and then forgets about it. It's often easier to inject links (and they stay up for longer), or to just hax your way in (as the pharm results attest). There are also some tasty education-specific CMSs out there that are d0follow and highly vulnerable that you just don't see used in other contexts.

An .edu that is 20 years old, publishing research and used by 10s of thousands of students will get that PR 8/9 by default, whereas a CNO domain gets there by the hard work of the owners / contributors (and thus has a lot more eagle eyes watching on the site). .edus are still a worthwhile target to pursue IMHO because targets that easy and that juicy are much less common in the commercial realm.

Originally Posted by Autumn

I agree in general with what you're saying, BUT an .edu is more likely to have that trust / authority from lengthy domain age, backlinks from high impact journals and news sources that in turn have a lot of backlinks etc, than a regular CNO domain.

Also security is generally lax because often parts of a .edu will be run by researchers or academic staff who are just trying to do their work and aren't looking too closely at people's spam attempts. CMSs get thrown up and left as the default just because someone needs something to use with their students, or someone sets up blog on their personal webspace and then forgets about it. It's often easier to inject links (and they stay up for longer), or to just hax your way in (as the pharm results attest). There are also some tasty education-specific CMSs out there that are d0follow and highly vulnerable that you just don't see used in other contexts.

An .edu that is 20 years old, publishing research and used by 10s of thousands of students will get that PR 8/9 by default, whereas a CNO domain gets there by the hard work of the owners / contributors (and thus has a lot more eagle eyes watching on the site). .edus are still a worthwhile target to pursue IMHO because targets that easy and that juicy are much less common in the commercial realm.

Absolutely and there's no way I can argue against that. But again, it has to do more with the overall authority/age of the domain, not with the actual domain extension.

On a related note, care to share those juicy targets?

I think the true value of .edu links lays in the fact that, when they are really good links (i.e., contextual links from blogs), you might get your site 'spread' among a good neighborhood.

For example, if you get mentioned on an .edu blog, the chances are good that someone who reads that might also mention you...and this is a neighborhood that Google would give more authority and weight to than mentions on some spam-laden dummy blog found somewhere else.