Why Google does NOT prioritise .EDU and .GOV domains

For every SEO opinion one can read on the Internet, there always seems to be a conflicting, sometimes directly polar, opinion preached elsewhere.  Sometimes, it seems like one particular opinion is treated like fact. Often it is “proven” by supposed SEO empiricists (I’ll cover why it is difficult to maintain the scientific method for SEO in another post in a few days) that one particular opinion is fact.  Sometimes, these facts even fly in the face of common sense.  Sometimes, they seem to tie in with common sense.  Sometimes, there just seems to be no common sense to benchmark an opinion against.

I know.  I already sound like I’m ranting.  Or perhaps I’m about to tell you all, “I told you so.”  Actually, I’m not – although I did express my opinions in private a few times, but never really took the opportunity to air them publically.  That is about to change! So, I guess what I’m saying is, “I would have told you so, if I could have been bothered!”

Told you what, though?

Well, the truth of the matter is that Google DO NOT give any extra weight or consideration to links coming from .GOV or .EDU TLDs. We’ve heard plenty of times that they do, and we’ve been provided plenty of anecdotal evidence to prove that they do.  Many people believe it makes sense that they do (I am not among those people, however).

Why should they not?  Well, really the question is why should they?

Google looks to measure a site’s trust and authority, and apply these measures as part of its algorithm to what is common refered to as link juice being passed from one site to another.  Link juice can be thought of as like PageRank, but more so, conveying a sense of trust, authority and relevance as well as the scalar measurement that is PageRank.  The key word in this is “measure,” not assume.  Google determines the trust and authority of web pages based on their local “network” of links in and out. By network, I don’t mean in the physical sense of cables and servers, I mean the sites that link in, and the sites that link out.  High authority sites, commonly link together, or to the same or similar resources, and are commonly linked to by the same or similar resources – they become parts of high-authority ‘social’ networks, although not always in the Web2.0 sense (often so, however).

Therefore, high-authority websites, end up that way owing to the nature of their authority network in which they participate.  Authority promotes authority. Trust promotes trust.  This is precisely why getting links from high authority websites is such a leg up the ladder for SEO.

Of course, high authority websites are not limited to .EDU or .GOV, but these TLDs are frequently high authority by their nature – not by Google’s deliberate decision.

How can I be so sure that this description is right, and that such TLDs are not chosen to be better by Google by default.  Well, I believe my theory is sound – it describes the principles (albeit extended into the 21st century) first described by Page and Brin while still at Stanford.  However, perhaps the most telling evidence comes from Matt Cutts himself (January 14, 2010), “Google basically treats links the same…and links don’t really matter whether they come from a .edu or a .gov.”

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