More on .Edu Links and Their Value

In our last post, we talked about the value of .edu links for SEO.  After considering comments by Google’s Matt Cutts and the nature of most .edu links, we concluded that there is some substantial SEO power in obtaining inbound links from .edu domains.

Some new information seems to support that conclusion.  A blog post at Divine Write provides notes from the recent SMX Sydney convention.  One of the speakers, noted SEO voice Rand Fishkin, discussed .edu links.  The blogger, Glenn Murray, summarizes:

Trustworthiness of a website – Good ‘degree of separation’ diagram: To Google, a site that’s one link away from a trusted seed (such as Amazon or an edu) is 0.4% likely to be spam, two links away is 1%, three links is 14%. This is why links from seed sites are so important.

Rand’s breakdown of SEO signals:

• Trust/authority of domain = 35%
• On page & keyword = 30%
• Page level link metrics = 25%
• Usage data = 10%

Now, think about what that means in terms of the potential SEO value of .edu’s.  Why does Google use links to determine SERPs?  In essence, it’s because they interpret inbound links as votes of confidence regarding a sites quality and relevance to users.  How does Google dtermine what kind of weight to give those inbound links?  Obviously, the trustworthiness of the source must be a significant consideration.

What do these SMX Sydney notes tell us?  They tell us that Google has a darn good reason to trust inbound links from .edu’s.  

Are .edu links the Holy Grail of SEO?  Of course not.  They are, however, a powerful component to increasing your performance in the SERPs.  Inbound links from .edu’s are just the kind of link Google should be trusting.  Isn’t that the kind of link you want?

Are .Edu Links REALLY that Important?

For a long time, people considered backlinks from .edu domains one of the most powerful SEO tools.  Google, they argued, trusted the .edu extension more than the .com, .net, etc.  That made links from an .edu domain more powerful in terms of improving a site’s SEO performance.   

After awhile, however, some folks started doubting that assessment.  It doesn’t seem as though their newfound suspicion had much to do with actual results, however.  Those who believed .edu links were working for them didn’t start experiencing drops in the SERPs or less traffic.  The perspective changed when Matt Cutts of Google weighed in on the topic.

Here’s what Cutts said:

But, certainly, all of the things that have good qualities of a link from a .edu or a .gov site, as well as the fact that we hard-code and say: .edu or .gov links are good - and when there are good links, .edu links tend to be a little better on average; they tend to have a little higher PageRank, and they do have this sort of characteristic that we would trust a little more. There is nothing in the algorithm itself, though, that says: oh, .edu - give that link more weight…  Well, you would be surprised how many are like: “Oh, I have to get .edu links because they are better.” You can have a useless .edu link just like you can have a great .com link.

Many interpret that as cutting against the power of .edu links.  A closer reading, however, doesn’t necessarily support that conclusion.  First, Cutts almost concedes that, generally speaking, a .edu link is probably at least a little better than an equivalent .com link.  He also concedes that the .edu extension brings with it a higher degree of trust.  

The algorithm may not say “value .edu links higher”, but we all know that it certainly values trusted links over questionable ones and we also know that .edu’s are perceived as being more trustworthy.

As another observer has noted, there are a few things we know about .edu’s that we should keep in mind when assessing their value.

1. EDUs are typically older domains, well established, respected sites.

2. Because not anyone can just start an EDU domain, they are hard to come by.

3. EDUs tend to have loads of inbound links and very high page rank of 7 or 8 or 9.

4. Content on .edu domains tends to be worthwhile and respected inherently.

When you read between Cutts’ lines and consider those other factors, it makes sense to actively pursue .edu links as part of your SEO strategy.

Feed Me! How RSS Use Can Boost Your SEO Efforts

RSS feeds are a great way to boost your SEO efforts.  With a little planning and effort, you can use feeds to collect backlinks.  Here are a few ways to harness the power of your sites’ RSS feeds.

First, make sure you have an easily-accessible way for people to find and to subscribe to your feed.  Not only does this increase your chance of direct “feed to site” traffic, it also makes it easier for people to nab your feed as part of their syndication efforts.  Loads of webmasters use the feeds of others to keep their sites “fresh” and that increases your backlink opportunities.

Second, use your own feeds on your web properties.  Do you regularly contribute articles to a popular directory?  That directory probably has an author’s feed.  Do you have a blog in support of your site?  It has a feed.  Squidoo lenses?  Same deal.  Now, ask yourself if your Squidoo lenses feature that author’s feed.  Is your blog making use of the Squidoo feeds?  You get the idea.  You can give yourself a little link love.

Third, don’t think that your non-blog site must be feed-less.  With a little coding you can create a feed for a traditional “static” site that will update every time you add new content or make adjustments.  

Fourth, submit your feeds to RSS feed aggregators.  This is just like submitting your site to directories, but the shine hasn’t worn off of the RSS world with the search engines as much as it has with directories.

And here’s a bonus fifth tip.  You can create unique feeds by mixing multiple feeds together.  You can use a tool like FeedMix.  Why is this valuable?  Suppose you come up with a “few” different ways to combine your existing feeds and you submit those hybrids to feed directories and aggregators…  Are you seeing the backlink possibilities?  Thought so!

RSS feeds can be a great way to boost your inbound link totals.  If you aren’t using them, it’s an oversight you should correct.

Get Free Sitewide Links the Easy Way

Much of successful SEO is a matter of developing inbound links to your sites.  As such, you can imagine just how powerful a sitewide link from a reguarly-visited, high-PR site can be to your SEO efforts.

Well, it’s possible to get those sitewide links without spending a dime and the process is actually incredibly easy.  If you’re ready to make a handful of blog comments, you can create a powerhouse set of sitewide links quickly.

It all starts with a popular plug-in that many bloggers use.  It’s a “top commenters” blogger and it was designed to encourage people to participate via comments with a blog.  It creates a list on the blog’s sidebar that features the “names” of those who’ve commented on the blog with the greatest frequency.

So, you need to find blogs that use this plug-in and assess how much effort it will take to break into the list of top commenters.  Then, you simply write enough comments to get on the list.  Boom.  Your “name” (which in many cases can actually be your preferred anchor text) with a live link will appear on every single post and page on the entire blog! 

Here are a few hints to get you started…

Don’t try to move to the number one slot right away.  Build your comments over a period of days or weeks.  If you suddenly dump 20 comments on a blog, it’s going to raise some suspicions that you’re merely trying to game the system.

Do write good comments.  ”I love this post!” isn’t going to cut the mustard.  If Askimet doens’t capture that as spam, the webmaster probably will.

Do check regularly.  You don’t want to fall of the list, so keep an eye on the blog to make sure that you’re not in danger of losing your slot.

This is an easy way to get a sitewide link and it’s amazing how little work it actually takes in so many cases.  Improve your SEO efforts today.  Start by using a Google search (keyword +”TopCommenter”) to find blogs in your niche that you can comment upon for to your advantage.

Using Cache Date Info to Your SEO Advantage

So, you have a shot at securing a link on a good-looking high-PR page. That sounds like a sure winner, doesn’t it?

Well, before you fork over the cash (or do whatever quid quo pro might be necessary to get it), there’s something you need to check. Go to Google, find the page you’re looking for in the SERPs and take a look at the date upon which that page was last cached–or, in the case of some scenarios, if it’s been cached at all. PixelHead breaks it down like this:

Check for cache with the site:url and with out the site:url. I believe that using the site:url returns pages that have been visited by the Google Spider that does deep searches, which are done with less frequency. If paying for links, I want to make sure that the links are cached by regular spiders as well as deep searching spiders for more Google juice for the link.

What you find might surprise you. Some pages and sites get visits from the Googlebot a few times every day. Others, even ones with impressive PageRank, see the spiders less often than you see your great aunt Edna who lives on the other side of the country.

You can find out which category a site falls into by looking at that cache date. That information is going to give you a good idea of how important Google really thinks the page is. If the search engines don’t feel a site’s worth checking out more than once in a blue moon, you should have reservations about its ability to help your site as a backlink source. As one forum commenter noted:

Since you need “quality” backlinks, you can start out by checking the cache date in Google. In the search box enter: “cache:www.thedomainname”. If the cache date is more than a month old, or worse yet, unchached, you might not want to waste the effort.

It actually goes a little deeper than that. Cache date isn’t just a good way of seeing how valuable potential link locations are. It’s also a good way to assess whether your site (or those of your competitors) are really as impressive in Google’s eyes as you might think.

Reciprocal Links and SEO

SEOs used to advocate reciprocal linking as a way to boost performance.  Search engine algorithms were rewarding links of all shapes and sizes and it made a lot of sense to trade links with other sites.  Entire networks were built around the idea of massive link-sharing.

And then the search engines wised up a little bit.  Today, link swaps don’t work exactly the same way they once did.  Links are still the currency of SEO, but the old “do reciprocals” model isn’t what it used to be.  Here’s why.

First, Google, et. al., have become increasingly concerned with efforts designed to intentionally manipulate rankings.  Their job is to deliver good search results, not to reward link traders.  They’ve tweaked their analysis to look for SEO-motivated trades and can spot a big ol’ reciprocal link exchange program (even a three-way system) a mile away.

Second, old school reciprocal swaps often involved dumping links on a “links” or “resources” page.  While those links still have some value, the search engines recognize them for the reciprocal landfills that they are.  If a page has two paragraphs of legit content and 500 outbound links, Google isn’t going to be particularly impressed with it.

Third, smart SEOs know that they can secure non-reciprocal inbound links just as easily as they can go after reciprocals.  And they don’t have to risk leaving an ugly footprint or bleeding a site’s PageRank with gobs of outbound links to do it.  It’s just not the most efficient method of getting those links.

You don’t want fistful after fistful of reciprocal links to boost your site.  What you do want are high-quality, thematically related links.

As reciprocal linking has fallen out of favor, some people have grown to believe that the practice can actually damage SEO efforts.  If you’re wondering if reciprocals are now the enemy, you can relax.  Reciprocal links often come about naturally–it’s only logical that two sites in the same sector may link to one another, after all.  The problem with reciprocal linking isn’t the fact that the links are reciprocal.  The problem is in the way people hopped on the reciprocal bandwagon, using tools and methods that were obviously efforts to court search engine favor.

Links are links, reciprocal or not.  They’re judged on their merits not on whether or not their reciprocated.  It just so happens that it’s more efficient to stay away from intentional link exchanges and to focus on building non-reciprocal inbound links today.  That also allows you to completely avoid the “excessive” reciprocation that has had a negative SEO impact on many of the sites who used to wade neck deep in the reciprocal link exchange game.

Why Looks Might Matter for SEO

We usually think of design and SEO as two very different aspects of the site management process. Design is usually discussed in terms of usability and aesthetics while SEO conversations center on backlink acquisition.

There is a place, however, where the two concepts overlap. That’s right, good design can be a good way to improve your SEO by encouraging others to backlink to you. Good looks might not be the most important aspect of making a site into a link magnet, but it can help.

Let’s outline a few of the ways that a good-looking site can improve your SEO.

First, if you can come up with a really attractive design you’re more likely to capture a visitor’s attention. In turn, that makes it more likely that they’ll discover the value in your content than if they encounter a plain or ugly site. That improves site performance on the visitor level, obviously, but it also increases the likelihood that the visitor may link back to you. In other words, getting attention is a good way of getting backlinks. We all know that viral content is a great way to get traffic and backlinks. It stands to reason that viral design—a design that really stands out and creates interest—could serve the very same function.

Second, there are some sites that are more likely to link to sites that demonstrate certain design components. Standards compliance is a great example. If your site is fully standard compliant, government sites and some directories will be more likely to link to you. Another great example of this involves communities that are interested in particular design techniques. If you build your site with a great CSS layout, for instance, you might get some link love from those involved in the CSS scene.

SEO isn’t a beauty contest, but good looks certainly can’t hurt as you try to climb the SERPs.

Commenting Your Way to Better SEO

The volume and quality of links pointing toward your site has a massive impact on its search engine performance. Backlinks are THE most critical aspect of off-page SEO and webmasters are always on the lookout for good ways to increase their backlink totals.

One of the easiest ways to secure backlinks is by commenting on blogs. No, we’re not talking about the old (and no longer powerful) practice of “comment spamming”. Instead, our focus is on finding blogs that are thematically related to your site and placing legitimate, constructive comments on them.

These backlinks won’t produce significant direct traffic, but they can help considerably with respect to SEO. In order to make the most of this link-building opportunity, however, there are few things you need to keep in mind. Let’s run down two of them:

The DoFollow Factor. Due to past abuses by comment spammers, many bloggers and blogging platforms implemented “NoFollow” tags that render comment links far less valuable. The NoFollow tag instructs the search engine not to follow the link. Although some minor engines may ignore the directive, Google follows the instruction. Commenting for backlinks only makes sense when you’re targeting DoFollow blogs.

The Relevance Factor. Google isn’t interested purely in how many backlinks you have. Quantity matters, but relevance and quality matter just as much. You’ll get much better results if you comment on blogs that have some direct thematic relationship to your site. If you’re selling cars, there are better ways to spend your time than commenting on video game blogs, for instance.

You don’t want to rely exclusively on blog comment links (Google prefers a well-rounded backlink profile), but they can be a great way to boost your SEO efforts. Take a look at one of the many lists of DoFollow blogs and find a few places to add to the conversation!

The Importance of Backlinks in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When you are learning about search engine optimization (SEO), you will most likely read a lot about backlinks as it is one of the most important things you can learn. For those who don’t really understand SEO fully yet, you are most likely wondering why backlinks, also commonly referred to as “inbound links,” are so important. The importance of backlinks to SEO has become very significant and they are now the foundation on which a fully optimized site is built, next to targeted keywords and good content.

The backlinks that you will have are what point users (and search engine spiders) to your website. The number of backlinks your site has will demonstrate its popularity and how it is valued by others. For a search engine like Google, backlinks are used to judge a site’s importance and standing. When a website has a good number of high quality backlinks, it will be viewed as an important and relevant website.

It is true that search engine will determine the relevance of a website based on the keyword search to find it. However, search engines also use backlinks to determine if the site is of high enough quality to rank at the top part of the search results pages. It is important that the links that point to you site be of high quality. It is quality and quantity that counts with backlinks. This means that is it better to have a few good quality websites endorse your site (i.e. links to your site) rather than have backlinks in many unknown sites.

The content on the websites linking to your site is very important as well. To be considered as a quality link, the website linking to your site should have content that is similar or related to yours. If the content is very different, the search engines will not see the link as high quality. The more related the content, the higher the quality of the link will be.

The search engines try to keep the playing field level and will also search for links that have been built over time. It is simple to manipulate the number of links on a web page to gain a high rank. However, it is difficult to manipulate search engines with backlinks from another website. This is why the algorithm guiding search engines use backlinks as an important feature. In the past, some website owners would use backlinks to achieve high rankings through link farms. Link farms are nothing more than a site with a collection of links. These sites do not provide any other quality information. Now, search engines are able to detect link farming websites and any link coming from one is ignored. However, you should be warned that having your site linked to by a link farm is a reason to have your site banned by search engines.

The foremost reason why you want backlinks is the get internet users to visit your site. It is not possible for you to be successful by building a site and just wait for people to discover you. You must provide links to your site through backlinks and other SEO methods. Reciprocal linking is one of the ways that some website owners help each other and provide links to each other’s sites. Make use of the available tools and processes involving backlinks and your SEO efforts will pay off.