The Value of an .edu and .gov link

Many people in the world of SEO believe that Google places more weight on links from governemt and/or educational websites.  These are usually sites with .gov or .edu extensions, but not necessarily so (for instance, only higher education institutions have the .edu sites, the K - 12 sites usually have .us extensions).  The theory is that Google believes that links from these sites are harder to come by and are more likely to exist become the webmaster found value in the site that they are linking to. 

While strict proof that Google favors these sites is difficult to come by, there is a certain logic to it.  For starters, not just anyone can acquire an .edu or .gov domain extension, they are reserved for governmental sites and accredited educational institutions.  This means that it is harder for someone to manipulate links from these domains.  It makes sense that Google would favor links from domains that are harder to manipulate.  After all, one of the biggest problems that Google (and the other search engines) have to deal with is people who attempt to manipulate the search engine results by creating artificial linking schemes.   Furthermore, SEOBook feels that the representation of .edu and .gov sites in Google’s search engine results is "disproportionate".  There are other arguments, although none of them seem conclusive (just suggestive). 

Others, however, argue that the advantage of receiving a link from an .edu and .gov sites lies in the fact that they tend to be older sites with a unique set of high quality incoming links.  People tend to trust these sites and as such they are able to attract large numbers of high quality incoming links.  Indeed, Google’s Matt Cutts claims (at the end of this video) that Google’s algorithm does not favor .edu or .gov links, but rather that these sites tend to be the types of sites that rank well (i.e., old sites with high quality inbound links).  Others, however, are skeptical.  After all, Google is known to be less than forthcoming with other important data concerning their algorithm (such as information concerning incoming links into a site).  Why then should we trust what they have to say about .edu or .gov links?   

At the end of the day, though, this debate doesn’t seem to be of great importance.  Whether or not .edu and .gov links are valuable because Google favors them or because they are high quality links in and of themselves, there seems to be value in receiving links from educational and/or governmental sites.  As Eric Wald states "these are the most trustworthy links you could ever hope to obtain, and will remain so long after the search engines have spotted and disregarded your other links that aren’t."

So, it seems unanimous that one way or another it is worthwhile Getting .edu and .gov links.  The only question is how to get them.  For that you can see our Getting .EDU .GOV Links Tutorial. 

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