Author’s Note: Since I receive and answer a fair amount of link building questions via email, I’ve decided to start publishing a sort of ‘link building FAQ’ every once in awhile. Hope you enjoy!

I’m never surprised by the amount of questions I get that are centered around getting .edu links. I think this partly stems from the blogging I’ve done on the subject and also a comment I made back in 2008.

Edu link building is definitely a service I offer and I’m always happy to talk about it with potential clients.

In this case, the person who emailed me owns a SEO biz, is interested in some .edu link development and has a relatively small budget of $500/month. My response basically covers my thoughts on what it takes to attain .edu links and what services I felt I could offer him for his specific situation and budget.

Oh, and before you decide to lynch me in the comments, please note that I am not advocating .edu links as the be all and end all of backlinks. I do think however, that there’s nothing wrong with trying to attain them as long as it’s not the ONLY type of links you’re focusing on. I firmly believe that every good link campaign involves getting links from a wide variety of high-quality sources.

Also, if you have a weak stomach for things like ‘paid links’, then pretty much just stop reading right here.

Hi Melanie,

I run a SEO consultancy business and am looking for a .edu link building service. I read your blog post about .edu link building and it seems that you are an expert in this area. If you can offer this service, please give me a quote for getting 10 .edu links from resource pages of US .edu’s through email outreach. I have a budget of $500/10 links per month and can guarantee 1 year/120 links or $6,000 worth of business *per site*.

I have 5 sites to order for but would like to test 1 site first. So to put it another way, my business is worth $30k/yr.

Thanks!

My response:

Hi (name removed),

For $500/month, I could definitely research and contact at least 5-10 .edu sites every month on behalf on 1 of your (or your client’s) sites. The site I’m building the links for, would need to have some linkable content though, or the chances of actually getting the .edu links would be very slim.

If the site had NO linkable content to speak of, then you would have to be willing and able to:

A) find out what type of content will attract .edu links for the niche
B) create the content and put it up on the site

Otherwise I would have to obtain your .edu links by purchasing them from my contacts. This would be no problem however $500 would barely be enough to buy 1 permanent .edu link (as the good ones are understandably expensive) and I have a feeling you’re probably looking for more than just 1 .edu link per month.

The other option is to hire ME to carefully research and create the linkable content, implement it and THEN commence with the natural .edu link development @ $500/month. This can still be tricky though as many .edu sites are simply unwilling to link to sites that make obvious money, therefore I couldn’t guarantee “xx” amount of links per month.

I know this probably isn’t what you were expecting to hear, but links from authority domains aren’t easy to come by. There is definitely either a lot of time, effort and/or money involved depending on which route you go.

Obviously you recognize just how valuable high-authority links can be though, and I commend you in advance for your willingness to try attaining them.

Happy to answer further questions,

Mel

The moral is, in order for your purely commercial site to attract natural .edu links, you need to be willing to create good content that is .edu link “worthy”. Either that or be willing to spend good money to buy natural looking links from .edu domains. There aren’t many shortcuts if you’re looking for results.

What are your thoughts on .edu backlinks? Are they worth the effort? Please share with a comment.