Responding to a post on the Google Webmaster Help forum, John Mueller stated, “In general, I would like to add that no, backlinks from .EDU domains generally do not get additional credibility from Google.”

SEO professionals starting paying more attention to links from .edu and .gov domains after Google’s update nicknamed Jagger, where reciprocal links were devalued and more importance was paid to links from sites having greater authority. Educational institutions are usually very choosy about whom they agree to link with. Websites of well known colleges and universities also typically have higher PageRank. The conclusion that such a link would be more valuable is therefore not really far-fetched.

A link from a .edu or .gov site is neither easily available free of cost nor through payment. These websites link only to extremely relevant and trustworthy sites or other equally popular sites. Immaterial of whether the domain extension of such a site is .edu or .com, it fits the bill for a good quality, desirable site to get a link from.

Back in April 2006, a post on High Rankings Forum asked whether there was any evidence that having inbound .edu and .gov links was “better” and counted more than other links, to which forum moderator Jill Whalen answered with a simple “no”. It would seem though that Jill may have been in a minority here as many SEOs voiced their belief in the SEO goodness of .edu and .gov links on a post at SEO Roundtable.

There is no absolute proof that search engines do or do not consider .edu links to be more valuable. Even Google’s, John Mueller does not categorically deny the value of a .edu domain. All he says is that they “generally” do not get more credibility from Google. This does not mean that link from respectable universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Yale will not count for more. Though, the fact rests that there are a lot more good attributes associated with all of those university websites than just their .edu extension.

However she seems to have quite a logical reason behind this diktat. She has found that most of her students just reproduce the same information that they find on the search engine and online encyclopedia.

In truth, most citizens in developed countries have totally surrendered to the wonders of technology, but in the process have given up using and developing their own minds to understand and analyze. It looks almost as though students pay good money and attend universities only to learn how to use Google!

The result of this blind allegiance to the wisdom of websites like Wikipedia is that students come up with average and humdrum results on their research projects; whereas what is required of students at the university level is the ability to study various issues and then think for themselves and come to their own conclusion regarding the issues at hand.

Prof Brabazon believes that it is upto the educational institutions to prevent students from having a sheep mentality where everybody blindly follows the internet. Speaking to a local newspaper she said, “”I ban my students from using Google, Wikipedia and other websites like that. I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce.”

It is convenient for lecturers and professors to allow their students to just use easily accessible online resources for the projects assigned to them, but that is not what they are paid to do. It is the job of each teacher to impart knowledge to and guide students to think for themselves and experience things first hand rather than rely solely on computers.

Professor Brabazon personally forbids her students to use search engines for their projects. While this does seem rather drastic, it is really worthwhile wondering if she may be right in doing so, as we seem to have become slaves to the world of technology; computers in particular.