Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is there a benefit to changing .com domain to .edu?
-
Hey All!
I'm wondering if there is any benefit (or if benefit could possibly outweigh the cost) to changing a domain from .com to a new .edu domain.
The current .com domain has decent credibility already, and the .edu will have never been used before.
-
I can see cases for using the .edu domain.
If you are in the business of educating people at your facility, at their facility, or on a website then I would definitely start using the .edu domain.
If you are a publisher of academic content that is really good content and recommended by professors and used by students then I would use the .edu domain.
There are many domains that clearly communicate the business of the organization. They bring "credibility even if undeserved"... and if you really deserve it then the .edu domain could be like throwing gasoline onto a fire in terms of attracting natural links and pulling clicks in the SERPs.
Which domain would you click (or type in) if you were looking for an educational organization named "wilson"? Which one would you be more inclined to link to?
There are .edu domains being used by organizations that are in the business of education, but most of their activities would be considered to be something other than students and teaching. Smithsonian.edu, Getty.edu, GIA.edu.
Have you ever sent a link request to a website suggesting that they link to the most valuable page in the internet for a topic and they write back.... Wow! That's a fantastic article, but we don't link to commercial websites?
If you have a website on wilson.com and send a link recommendation to loc.gov or nasa.gov, what are your chances of getting a link? Does that change if your website is on wilson.edu?
-
I presume that this is for an educational institution. However, apart from making clear that your website is about an educational institution, it doesn't have any benefits.
If you want to redirect the .com version to the .edu version, you have to make sure that you have the right redirect strategy. Redirect pages to the right corresponding pages on the new domain using 301 redirects.
So to answer your question, I think the effort is bigger than the benefits.
-
No, none whatsoever. The old TLD bonus debates drew an accurate correlation but completely inaccurate causality
People thought:
1) I see lots of EDU sites
2) They rank really well
3) If I make an EDU it will rank well
... WRONG! Google aren't that stupid. Otherwise all webmasters would now be using EDU domains and all other domains would be pointless (which would be a weird internet to live on)
The truth was actually this:
1) EDU TLDs (Top-Level Domains) tend to be chosen by educational bodies or organisations
2) Such organisations are usually run by educated people and academics
3) One thing those people are good at, is creating really strong (in-depth) accurate content
4) As such many EDU sites naturally became prominent, because of Google's normal ranking rules (not some weird EDU TLD bonus scheme)
If you're looking for quick and easy answers in SEO, you're gonna have a bad time
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Sub Domain Usage
I see that the gap uses gap.com, oldnavy.gap.com and bananarepublic.gap.com. Wouldn't a better approach for SEO to have oldnavy.com, bananarepublic.com and gap.com all separate? Is there any benefit to using the approach of store1.parentcompany.com, store2.parentcompany.com etc? What are the pros and cons to each?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kcb81780 -
Consolidating Multiple Domains into A Single Domain
I have a client who's website is an amalgamation of multiple domains. jacksonhole.net is the main domain but the site passes traffic back and forth from the following domains/sites. My questions is, would it it be better for SEO to consolidate all of these domains under the single high authority domain and 301 redirect the rest or is that a really bad idea? Thanks for your help. jacksonhole.net (Domain Authority 31) jackson-hole-rental-condos.com (Domain Authority 22) jackson-hole-rental-homes.com (Domain Authority 21) j acksonholehotelguide.com (Domain Authority 19)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbaxa-2613381 -
The benefits from having a dedicated IP
Is the true? Claim by SiteGround Having a dedicated IP for each website is considered by some experts as an advantage for search engine optimization. There is a common believe that sites with dedicated IP addresses do better in the search engine results than those on shared IPs. Such sites do not share the risk of being banned for sharing the same IP in case another website hosted on the same server gets banned by a search engine.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JordanBrown0 -
Should I redirect my Google Update Effected Domain to brand new Domain?
Hey Moz experts, I had a domain which was really doing better but after the Humming Bird update my traffic was decreased up to 90%. There are plenty of posts on my existing blog, Now what should I do? I mean should I redirect it to a brand new domain or Copy all the posts to a brand new domain and delete my existing domain? Note that the Old domain has PR1, DA 19 and PA 30.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imran20780 -
Cons and pros of changing your e-commerce store domain name?
We have an online toy store, the domain is old over 10 years and we have some traffic, we are considering to change our domain name. There are two reasons why. First of all, we expand our product category, before we were only a puzzle store now we sell almost any kind of toy. And at this point, our current domain, PuzzleZoo.com is not representing our capacity. We also have toyzoo.com domain registered, that is also an old domain but there has been no activity with that domain. Our concern is, how do we avoid to lose ranking and keyword authority, are we going to start from the ground? What are the correct procedures to follow during this switch if we prefer to switch? As an alternative scenario, if we decide to keep both and open another e-store with toyzoo domain name and continue operating PuzzleZoo.com, with same products, will taht be a duplicate issue? If it is what are the consequences? (Just to add a note here, our PuzzleZoo is also a small brick and mortar store chain in CA and TX) ToyZoo will only be an online store. Even in this case at the eyes of Google, are we going to have a duplicate store that can potentially be penalized or PuzzleZoo being a brick and mortar store chain might help us to avoid being penalized? Should we switch the domain and redirect PuzzleZoo to ToyZoo, should we keep them both and running separately? We need to give a decision and I was wondering if there are any expert here that can give us a good intelligent advise on which path to go?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PuzzleZoo0 -
Why does a site have no domain authority?
A website was built and launched eight months ago, and their domain authority is 1. When a site has been live for a while and has such a low DA, what's causing it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | optimalwebinc0 -
Merging Domains... Sub-domains, Directories or Seperate Sites?
Hello! I am hoping you can help me decide the best path to take here... A little background: I'm moving to a new company that has three old domains (the oldest is 10 years old), which get a lot of traffic from their e-letters. Until recently they have not cared about SEO. So the websites have some structural, coding, URL and other issues. The sites are indexed, but have a problem getting crawled and/or indexed for new content - haven't delved into this yet but am certain I will be able to fix any of these issues. These three domains are PR4, PR4, PR5 and contain hundreds of unique articles. Here's the question... They want to move these three sites **to their main company site (PR4) and create sub domains for each one. ** I am wondering if this is a good idea or not. I have merged sites before (creating categories and/or directories) and the end result is that the ONE big site, is much for effective than TWO smaller, less authoritative sites. But the sub domain idea is something I am unsure about from an SEO perspective. Should we do this with sub domains? Or do you think we should keep the sites separate? How do Panda and Penguin play into this? Thanks in advance for the help! SD P.S. I'm not a huge advocate in using PR as a measurement tool, but since I can't reveal the actual domains, I figured I would list it as a reference point.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | essdee0 -
Hosting images on multiple domains
I'm taking the following from http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html "Splitting components allows you to maximize parallel downloads. Make sure you're using not more than 2-4 domains because of the DNS lookup penalty. For example, you can host your HTML and dynamic content on www.example.org and split static components between static1.example.org and static2.example.org" What I want to do is load page images (it's an eCommerce site) from multiple sub domains to reduce load times. I'm assuming that this is perfectly OK to do - I cannot think of any reason that this wouldn't be a good tactic to go with. Does anyone know of (or can think of) a reason why taking this approach could be in any way detrimental. Cheers mozzers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eventurerob0