Agreed. Google's algorithm doesn't directly look for the .edu or .gov extension and award extra points just because it's there. In fact there are some long-standing .edu domains that have been grandfathered to their owners who would not pass today's eligibility requirements. There are also some newer .edu rules that allow the edu TLD for second-tier types of schools - regionally accredited schools rather than nationally accredited,for example. Neither of these two types of edu domain shows the kind of ranking that we would expect, if just the TLD alone were a factor. However, many or most of the .edu and .gov domains, simply because of who they represent, tend very naturally to get the kind of quality and quantity in their backlink profile that helps them rank well. In other words, Google's algo doesn't need to look at the TLD to generate the kinds of results we currently see. So study the urls that are doing well, and see what you need to come up with to compete. They definitely can be topped.
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