Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Is there any way to get the backlinks to your site from .edu and .gov sites?
I believe it'll be gr8, if I am able to get the backlinks from any of the .edu and .gov sites as they are generally trusted sites.
What say?
Thanks and regards
D
Your reply here, however, isn't too helpful. There are many excellent sites that have no .gov or .edu links (I believe I have a few myself) and many trash sites that have them in quantity.
As well you know, building a quality site (the ethically perfect choice) is only one way of getting good links and not a guaranteed route.
Most exceptional, quality old sites have obtained good institutional links over many years. Acquiring them quickly, naturally requires a bit of hard work.
I would recommend that for each of your targeted keywords try a search like:
"keyword" site:.edu
"keyword" site:.gov
That will show you some good candidate pages where you just might be able to get a link.
Trawl your competitors' backlinks (in Yahoo for greater completeness) for .gov and .edu links. See if you can't get them too.
Networking. Find academics specializing in your field. Write to them politely offering them help, research, or , dare I say it, financing or sponsorship.
There are a few other methods that you can probably guess - but they're not going to be gratis.
One of the keys is to keep in mind the kind of person you're dealing with. Spend some time to find out the correct person to send the enquiry to in the first place, and remember that you're not talking to an SEO or a web marketer, and they sure as heck won't care much for SERP's, PR and the like. Chances are they look after the web content as a secondary job role, and are probably pretty busy in their job. They probably work Mon - Fri, 9-5, and will spend Monday morning sifting thru a mountain of weekend mail (and be suffering from Monday-morning blues) and on Fridays they will have one eye on the weekend. There's a lot you can do with that kind of insight.
Personally I love link-building. It's like a game of chess, and the more you can get into the mind of the other person, the better chance you have of a result.
Your reply here, however, isn't too helpful.... I would recommend that for each of your targeted keywords try a search like:"keyword" site:.edu
"keyword" site:.gov
Despite what you may think, my advice is what the OP needs to hear. There are NO shortcuts, and your advice will sooner get get his domain blacklisted as an email spammer than assist in acquiring a dot edu backlink. University Professors can be ferociously indignant about receiving link requests and will report you as a spammer. There are very real risks involved that can hurt you.
To make an analogy, if someone were to ask my advice on how to make a woman fall in love with them, I could tell them all my fave pick up lines, strategies for attracting women's attention, locations of hyper-romantic restaurants, a recipe for a romantic date, plus reveal my superscret Make Love Like a Rock Star techniques... but you know what? It wouldn't be as helpful as telling that person to join a gym, buy a toothbrush, and read a few books.
[edited by: martinibuster at 10:45 pm (utc) on Jan. 8, 2007]
Trusted TLDs
.EDU and .GOV - Trusted Top Level Domains
[webmasterworld.com...]
When I refer to .edu, I'm referring to U.S. .edu domains.
.edu and .gov links usually come naturally. There are exceptions to the rule.
We own an aviation related site that the FAA linked to from their .gov and we didnt even ask for the link. They just did it because their traffic would naturally be interested in our site. (We link back to them.. some might argue we are stupid to do so becuase the one way from the .gov is gold - but it benefits our end users to link back to the .gov.)
So I would offer that if your site doesnt do business related to .edu or .gov, you might be wasting your time trying to get links from those domains.
Martinibuster is right.. site quality is ultimately going to dictate who will naturally want to link to a site.
Despite what you may think, my advice is what the OP needs to hear. There are NO shortcuts, and your advice will sooner get get his domain blacklisted as an email spammer than assist in acquiring a dot edu backlink. University Professors can be ferociously indignant about receiving link requests and will report you as a spammer. There are very real risks involved that can hurt you.
You might be right and I wouldn't want to suggest that anyone sends a pile of link requests to university professors. For that reason, I was careful to recommend that if you're going to get in touch you should be offering something, not asking for something.
Nonetheless, as others have suggested here, link building is an art of ingenuity. Some strategies will pay off, others won't. Obtaining trusted backlinks are a major part of any marketing strategy these days, and there are legitimate ways of obtaining them without treading on anyone's toes and without spamming anyone.
I may have a competitor who has a site broadly no better and no worse than mine. They may have the good fortune of being picked up on an academic site and I may not. As a professional I would like to reduce that element of luck.
But I take your point:
Despite what you may think, my advice is what the OP needs to hear.
