How To Get .edu and .gov Links

As we mentioned in our The Value of an .edu and .gov link Tutorial, .edu and .gov links seem to be highly valued incoming links (either because Google tends to favor them or because they naturally tend to be high quality incoming links).  As such, it is worth asking what one can do to attract such links.  Below are some useful strategies.

Getting .edu Links

1. Go after the high quality .edu links
   Not all .edu links are created the same.  For instance, links from a students homepage or an online newspaper aren’t considered as valuable as are links from a professor’s home page or (even better) the university library site, since it is usually easier to get links from students pages than it is from the university library web site. To quote Eric Wald: "give me 10 library links instead of 100 student page links any day."  This doesn’t mean that there is no value in getting links from students pages, just that your main focus should be on the higher quality .edu links. 
    
2. Offer your services
   If you have services that can benefit a school, offer them for free or at a discounted rate in exchange for a link.  Some possible ideas include offering website design or marketing services, discounts on gardening services, free financial advice, etc.  Alternatively, you could offer a special class, host a event, or give some guest lectures.  The key is to think creatively about what value you can offer the school.  If you do you will most likely find yourself with some quality .edu links.
    
3. Promote your services
   If you provide services that benefit the school and/or their students then see if you can get the school to link to your service.  For instance, if you run a local hotel/motel ask the school to link to your site as a possible source of lodging for people visiting the school from out of town. 
    
4. Review a schools online programs
   If a school offers any sort of online programming and/or services consider reviewing those programs or services and them asking for a link to your review.
    
5. Use your knowledge
   Here is a particularly clever idea (found on the SEOMoz.org blog): "Write an article about a Chapter or Topic in a popular college course, then notify professors about it…Don’t do this unless you have fantastic knowledge and writing ability on the topic - or hire a second prof to write the article for you. Profs are extra picky about what they link to.  Don’t bug them for a link unless you have best on the web calibre content."  Note, though, that "most of these links are now inside of course management systems such as BlackBoard and WebCT.  These do not get spidered and pass no juice".  The advantage of these links lies in the fact that they "deliver short bursts of traffic each semester that the course is taught".  And if that particular professors web page ranks well in the search engine you can actually expect a good deal of traffic from that link. 
    
6. Donate money
   If you or your business donate money to a particular school and they list your donation on your site ask if they would be willing to include your URL along with your name.
    
7. Participate in forums with the .edu extenstion
   Check to see if there is an .edu online forum related to your industry and, if so, participate in that forum.  Often times you will be able to add a "signature" to your posts which contains a link to your website.  Also, from time to time you may be able to link to your site in a post if your site provides relevant information to a conversation taking place on the forum.  A good way to find these forums is to do a search online.  Simply search for your keyword plus the phrase "forum site:.edu".  For instance, if you wanted to find .edu forums relating to art you would do the following search:  art forum site:.edu.  It doesn’t hurt, of course, to check the link popularity of the forum before investing time and effort into it. 
    
8. Participate in blogs with the .edu extension
   Like forums, blog participation is often times a good way to get incoming links.  Simply post relevant comments to the blog.  Often times this will automatically include a link to your site.  Furthermore, if you have some content that you feel relates to the blog post feel free to add a link to the appropriate page in the comments section.  Like .edu forums, you can find .edu blogs by searching online for your keyword plus the phrase "blog site:.edu".  For instance, to find art related blogs search for "art blog site:.edu".
    

Getting .gov Links

1. Provide Good Press
   Here is yet another clever idea from the SEOMoz Blog:  "Government agency heads like positive press as much as anyone…  When I have a positive message about a specific agency I always send a quick email to their webmaster and to the agency head. This email contains the URL of my review and a positive note about their work…  So, next time you see some nice info on a .gov site or in a .gov publication that matches the theme of
   your website, think about writing a review and letting them know that you appreciate their work."
    
2. Donate to Government sponsored charities
   Who knows, perhaps the government agency that sponsors the charity will link to you.
    
3. Participate in blogs and forums with the .gov extension
   Same idea as participating in the .edu blogs and forums, except that you search for .gov blogs and forums instead.  For instance, to find art related forums search "art forum site:.gov".  To find art related blogs search for "art blog site:.gov".

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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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