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What would you do to get EDU links? There is a popular belief that EDU links are the holy grail of search engine optimization. Are  EDU links really that powerful and is it worth going to a lot of extra effort to get EDU links?

The theory is that Google assigns a lot of authority to websites of colleges and other educational institutions. I don’t think there is any question of whether a link from an authority site is better than a link from a non-authority site. If I had my choice of one link from authority site or  10 links from various non-authority sites I would take the one link any time.

Considering the above statements and speculations the question boils down to whether educational domain sites really carry more authority than other sites. Just like in other areas of life there are very few absolutes in search engine optimization. My opinion is that EDU links on average are actually superior to other links.

There will be some people who will disagree with me primarily because of a statement that one of the Google employees made in early 2008. John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, stated:

“In general, I would like to add that no, backlinks from .EDU domains generally do not get ‘additional credibility from Google.’”

I don’t really know if that statement as expressed by John is entirely accurate, but even if it is it still does not dissuade me from pursuing EDU links. Even if Google does not explicitly ascribe more value to EDU links that does not mean that on average EDU links are not more valuable than other links.

I base a lot of my SEO knowledge on my own experimentation and testing. Obviously, I read what the experts say, and take that into consideration. However, I very rarely take those statements as fact unless I have experienced them with my own sites.

I devised a simple test to compare the authority of EDU sites to other sites in general. While it is in no way a scientific test or proof that all EDU sites carry more authority than other sites, it does make it pretty clear that EDU domains are usually authority sites. Here is what I did and you can feel free to try this at home:

I made a list of 10 college sites, 10 corporate sites, and 10.net sites. I tried to balance each list with a mixture of large medium and small organizations. I then visited each site and checked the Google page rank. Obviously page rank is not the only indicator of a sites authority but it is a pretty good one regardless.

What I found was that the small colleges had page ranks of five or six, the midsized colleges six or seven, and the large colleges eight or nine. The.COM and NET sites had about two less page rank than the corresponding EDU sites.

I still wouldn’t stand on my head to get EDU links, but if I had a fairly easy way to get those links I would go for it. Well, it just so happens that I do know a fairly easy (and free) method of getting EDU links. On the other hand it is actually harder to get links from high page rank corporate and network sites.

If you register for my free newsletter you will get a report that explains in detail how to get free EDU links. This report usually sells for $27, but I have obtained the rights to provide it for free to my subscribers. Please note if you already subscribe to my newsletter you either already have this free report or receive it shortly there is no need to subscribe again.

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