20 replies to this topic

[aethernet]

Does Google weigh the different tld's differently? Are .gov links worth more than .edu's/.com's? what about .org's?

[joedolson]

There's a strong opinion that .edu's and .gov's (and, presumably, .mil, as well) are of overall greater value for inlinks, since for the most part, it is very difficult to obtain one of these top level domains unless you are a legitimate government or educational body. These organizations are generally assumed to have great significance, and are very unlikely to be carriers for spam links or purely commercial link building efforts - it's reasonable to assume that these institutions are only linking out to sites which they consider to be authoritative.

Are Links From .edu and .gov Domains Really "Better?"

Other top level domains are so freely available that they cannot be given greater weight purely on that basis - only TLD's which have specific requirements can really be weighted.

[FP_Guy]

I have always believed that this to be true as well. Does anybody know of a way to test this out? I just developed a web site that just received a .gov link pointing to it.

[A.N.Onym]

Get a domain, where you spent the same efforts in regards with SEO but without a .gov link.
Basically, just get the same amount of links to a new domain to see if it works.

Wonder if .gov and .edu links help reduce the sandboxing effect.

[Shanada]

sometimes i wonder if links from a .edu, .gov etc are worth more not simply because of them being a .edu, etc but because so many sites will naturally point to these types of sites anyway?

[joedolson]

sometimes i wonder if links from a .edu, .gov etc are worth more not simply because of them being a .edu, etc but because so many sites will naturally point to these types of sites anyway?

I'm sure that's relevant - but I would still be inclined to think that .edu and .gov have an inherent authority due to the application process required to get them. Of course, there are a few .edu sites out there which are not actually accredited universities or colleges - they got their TLD's before those rules were really set in place. Philips Exeter Academy, for example.

However, these are very uncommon.

I think that the .edu and .gov TLD's should provide value for the simple reason that they're very difficult to fake - most educational institutions or government agencies are maintaining their sites with enough care to detect any kind of hacking, and are not too likely to be spam havens.

Large numbers of inbound links, on the other hand, can be achieved withough merit.

[JohnMu]

Did you read the old Newsweek article on SEO? They write about how "Earl Grey" used "an illicit software program" which he used to "forcibly injected a link to his own private-detectives referral site onto the site of Long Island's Stony Brook University."

In reality, without all the hype, he just placed his URLs in their guestbook / blog comments (doesn't sound half as exciting, right?).

All the usual entry points to place URLs are available on the .edu/.gov domains. All it takes is a forum which isn't watched, a guestbook or blog without a rel=nofollow filter; or even any of the known portal / cms software packages which wasn't updated to protect against a known security issue. Additionally, there are lots of open redirectors that will let you place a link on a .gov/.edu domain without a lot of work. And then you have all those students who get a free homepage at their college with a .edu TLD . (and who knows how many of the server admins are really 110% clean and don't accept deals for links with private payment?)

I realize they're likely rated higher (and rarer), but they shouldn't be overrated.

Additionally, they're US-only (as far as I can tell) and personally that alone bothers me a bit. Are there no governments / educational institutes outside of the US? All other "high value" government / educational websites imho should deserve the same treatment. And perhaps they do: based on their inbound links alone, their domains will have higher value. It makes you wonder if the .edu/.gov domains are really more valuable because of their TLDs or if it's more because of the quality for their inbound links?

John

[joedolson]

I've believe that, of the hundreds of factors involved in weighting page relevancy, no one factor is hugely more valuable than another. .edu and .gov domain indicators are just one factor like any other - might have a weight, but I doubt it's on an enormous level.

If his detective site gets booted off the search engines, Grey will simply move on to another project. "I'm not very professional,'' he says. "I do what I need to do to get where I need to be."

A spam injection like "Earl Grey's" can be discounted fairly easily by other methods - simply because of massive duplication of a single link. (Not that search engine's ARE doing this, but I suspect that they COULD.) He's not aiming for long term link value - it's consistent with the "black hat" mentality - each project is temporary, and a short term link is all they need.

I agree absolutely that .edu's are vulnerable like any other site. It may be a factor more along the lines where the rank of a .edu is inflated more on the basis of it's inlinks than another site - a .edu with 10,000 inlinks is more important than a .com with 10,000 inlinks. This would pretty easily discount the value of a student's page with only an internal link or a couple of inlinks.

Additionally, they're US-only (as far as I can tell) and personally that alone bothers me a bit. Are there no governments / educational institutes outside of the US?

That's definitely a problem with the whole system - the moderately common methods used in other countries (.gov.uk, .edu.uk, etc.) are probably pretty easily factorable in these algorithms, but this still leaves a lot out.

It makes you wonder if the .edu/.gov domains are really more valuable because of their TLDs or if it's more because of the quality for their inbound links?

Yep. Who knows?

[Respree]

Seeing as how none of the search engines are revealing their secret (ranking) formula, I can't say one could come to a reasonable conclusion one way or the other.

[Black_Knight]

Most .gov sites at the least are (and have always been) laughably lethargic in catching up. They are often the last to know what is hot and what is cool, and what is truly relevant.

On the other hand, their level of consideration before linking to things is (usually) both high and deep. However, doesn't standard PageRank and Trust-ranking algorithmic solutions already give these sites an earned bonus where appropriate?

I see no need for the engines to give an additional bonus based on domain registration. I view it unlikely that the search engineers would admit their weighting systems were so broken as to need such a clumsy and inelegant solution too.

My view? No bonus from domain alone.

[EGOL]

IMO the amount of "juice" received from .edu and .gov links is no different than what you get from a .com link however, the deciding factor is the amount of "trust" that is associated with the links. I have sites with very few .edu and .gov links and a site that has a lot of them. In the same SERPs, given roughly equal optimization and linkage, the site with the .edu links generally crushes the sites without them.

New pages on the site with the .edu links and .gov links are thrown high into the SERPs the morning after publication and stick there.

In terms of trust imagine a site that has hundreds of links from "trusted" .edu and .gov sites - and those .edu and .gov sites giving the links each have thousands of inbound .edu and .gov links of their own. Compare that to a site with an equal number of .com links of similar PR. Who do you think will win? I don't even need to think about where I would place my money.

[JohnMu]

Ah, I see, EGOL, you mean they're running a giant link-circle within their own TLD? tsk tsk, all that inbreed...,er,inlinking . I thought Google recognizes link-circles like that now? (just kidding )

John

[EGOL]

lol... right!

Great sites link to other great sites - and that is what the web is supposed to be about. Surprising that some of the most powerful sites on the web have been built without a revenue model and were done as generous acts of educators and government agencies.

[Black_Knight]

With your tax money.

[EGOL]

The .gov sites were with tax money for sure... but the best .edu content that I see were "off of the contract" labors of love by professors (they will probably shoot themselves someday when they realize the value of a PR8 site with a ton of trusted links - and realize that they could have built it on their own property). Lots of wikipedia content comes from these same folks.

Edited by EGOL, 16 June 2006 - 05:38 AM.

[aethernet]

I have found a way to get (yes legally) several hundred links to my site from a moderately relevant .gov domain that has about 12,500 external backlinks.

I'll give it a month or so and post back what happens.

[randfish]

There is one really good way to tell that .edu and .gov links carry quite a bit of weight - use Yahoo!'s Site Explorer. Note how, as you go from page 1 of the results down to page 20 or 30, the "quality" of the linking pages goes down. It's presumed by nearly everyone that Yahoo! is showing "better" links before "worse" links, though the ordering obviously isn't precise.

When I look through lots of these, I almost always see .gov and .edu (and occassionaly .mil and .us, too) links showing up near the top. In my opinion, that's fairly strong evidence that what SEOs have believed for a long time holds true (at least at Yahoo!).

[aethernet]

I have noticed this too, but like you said it's not exact. I also think there could be delay in how yahoo "ranks" links though. I bought a link from a very popular website and yahoo ranked it on my fourth or fifth page at first but after a couple of months it made it to page 1.

[Ron Carnell]

When I look through lots of these, I almost always see .gov and .edu (and occassionaly .mil and .us, too) links showing up near the top. In my opinion, that's fairly strong evidence that what SEOs have believed for a long time holds true (at least at Yahoo!).

I have to disagree with your logic, Rand. If you see a lot of .com TLDs in there does that necessarily mean they are algorithmically weighted more than .org or .info?

I think it's just as possible the .gov and .edu domains are present for the same reasons the .coms are there -- because they have proven they deserve to be there. As EGOL as argued, there are some really terrific sites being built under those TLDs , sites that deserve to be ranked well. Additionally, I think such sites often attract links more easily than most because, even if the search engines don't bestow automatic trust on them, I suspect people do. If I want to post a link to prove a point, I'm going to appeal to the highest perceived authority I can find in order to give my argument weight. I'll link to an .edu, if I can, because I expect others to agree with my perceptions of them.

I don't think the search engines give a boost to any TLDs because, frankly, I don't think they have to. People are already doing it for them, in a way that is both natural and that helps weed out the MANY .edu pages that are real stinkers (sorry EGOL ).

[EGOL]

lol.... stinkers are ubiquitous!

I've published a lot on .edu domains and know that they get links easily. And, the KW.com can also be a link magnet.