Are .EDU domains still give an SEO boost?

.EDU backlinks are/were known to give SEO benefits.

Are they still viable in today’s SEO?

The answer is yes. And here is why:

Getting a .EDU domain still has a very daunting “approval” process.

And most importantly, it’s hard to cheat. Whenever the .EDU domain is granted, it proves that the entity qualifies as an official and valid educational institution.

Search Engines give more credit and power to backlinks coming from .EDU for that particular reason.

You are receiving a vote from a verifiable authority on its field.

But not all links are equal, though :)

Like with any backlink, the context needs to be “natural”

The main venues to earn a backlink from a .EDU domain are:

• Resources (they use a lot of these)
• Courses
• Academic papers and Thesis
• Regular blog posts
• Scholarships

.EDU is no exception.

For the institution to accept giving you a backlink, whatever you propose needs to give “value” to them.

And for backlinks to work, they need to be used in the proper context, without any apparent signs of overdoing/trying to control it.

There is a huge difference in quality, search engines’ consideration, and results from:

• A $5 gig giving you 500 .EDU backlinks from unworthy comments’ links, students’ generated content, and low-quality AI-generated content on .EDU internal blogs that nobody reads or interacts with.
• A real SEO campaign costing you thousands but gets you 10s of .EDU backlinks on well-exposed posts or courses that will drive actual traffic and be considered by search engines as a valid vote.

Legit content coming from .EDU will have great SEO value.

Cheap tricks and attempts to cheat the system .EDU will have a negative SEO value.