It is generally accepted among SEO that .Edu/.Gov domains have more worth than .com domains or at least it was. Then Matt Cutts(the Google guy) wrote in his blog that a .edu domain is worth no more than a .com domain. As soon as this happened I saw SEO who had believed this for years bend and changed their opinion to Matts side.

So is it true? Is Matt Cutts just saying this to keep .Edu domains clean from spam link builders or is he correct?
Are Education Domains of greater worth or are .com domains just worth less than other extensions?
I believe that Education Domains have greater worth than .com domains and this article aims to provide some evidence of that.

As I mentioned above, before Matt Cutts made this statement alot of SEO believed that .Edu/.Gov domains had greater worth as far as back links go than .com or other related extensions. What gave the SEO these ideas?

If you have any SEO experience and have even attempted to try and get some .edu backlinks you will understand how hard it is for a average site to get a link from them. This was realized by SEO and I believe by Google a while back as well. Google decided .Edu domains deserved more value as they were less inclined to exchange links or link to any site. SEO soon learned that a .Edu link seemed to give more value as well. Whether this was because .Edu domains have better backlinks or because Google does put more worth on the .Edu extension is really not a proven fact.

I cannot prove that .Edu domains have more value in the extension alone however I can prove that they overall will give you much more value in importance and link value. Any SEO who have been able to acquire some of these links will agree that they are of extremely great value. As are the .Gov domains which like .Edu generally are clean sites.

If .Edu Domains do have more value why would Matt say differently?
Matt Cutts works for Google. Obviously to a certain degree everything he says has to be what Google wants. He couldn’t give out details about the Google Algo or other top-security information so it is logical that Google uses Matt Cutts as a direct link to webmasters. Doesn’t it make since? Google would want a way to tell the webmasters different things so why wouldn’t Matt Cutts be that link? And if he is it would be logical they used him to say .Edu domains aren’t worth anymore so that they wouldn’t be spammed. Google knew the idea that they were worth more was spreading and that they were getting more spam so it would be perfect timing. Again I cannot prove this but neither has anyone proven that .Edu domains are not of greater value. and any research I have done has only made me believe stronger that they have more value.

Are there other extensions that are of more value?
Yes I believe so but mainly for certain aspects of Google ranking. I have found over and over that the .info/.net domains seem to escape the sandbox much easier and come out much quicker and afterwards rank quicker. Now after this I don’t believe a .com that is equal in every aspect to a .info/net except the extension will have less value or rank harder. However I do believe that there is a small effect when they are new. .com are the most highly spammed domains so it would be highly likely that Google would keep a closer eye on them. Likewise .Edu/.Gov are the lowest on the spam-o-meter so it would only seem logical that they would gain more value quicker and more easily and maybe just maybe receive more value per link than if a identical .com domain.

.Edu Link Building
If .Edu domains are worth more whether because of ext or better quality backlinks how do I get them to link to me?
Education/Government Domains like I mentioned before are generally clean and informative sites. They try to provide information for their students or whoever else might be using the site and sometimes provide other related resources that their visitors may find useful. These domains are usually not optimized however usually have good PR pages which is generally a sign that webmasters of other sites are linking to all the pages throughout the site not just a few like some .com domains.

Since these .Edu domains are usually useful they will only link to sites that also provide very useful information which is related to theirs. Even sties with good content and which are related sometimes have a hard time getting a link. Your content and information must not only be related, targeted and unique but extremely unique. It has to be something that the education site will just have to link to. Maybe because you provide a resource for their students or a tool for finding the best books related to your schoolwork or whatever.

Some Education sites have a guestbook, forums or other community tool that could be used to spam. I highly recommend staying clear of this. Not only is it useless and unthoughtful but you will lose all chances of ever being linked to by that site. Also don’t send a email request which looks like a template. This will be picked up quickly and your email will probably be dumped. Write the email so it seems personal to that specific site. Not only mention pages you like but mention specific ideas about the school that you found unique such as the curriculum or whatever. This works for all link building. If you can get the webmasters pride bursting he/she may just link to you because of it. It has worked for me many times. Also finding the name of the webmaster and addressing the email directly to him/her is the best.

Keep the link request email short but informative. Leave a Ps at the bottom summarizing what it is you just told them and sign it with your name a business email and a phone number. If you provide a ph number you have 80% more chance of getting the link. Spammers don’t leave calling cards

Please leave your comments on the article and tell me if I made any mistakes or left out something you wanted addressed.

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