.edu links

[PeterM22]

Hi mozzers,

I've had some great success reaching out to many .edu webmasters. Often they are professors and such. My question is, i'm guessing during the summer holiday period, reaching out to these webmasters won't be so fruitful. I'm not in the US and was wondering when the US Summer holidays are for universities over there? Also, does anyone have experience outreaching to these webmasters over the holidays?

Peter

[EGOL]

Most of them are on eight or nine month contracts and are regularly at their offices between late August and mid May.

Mid to late August is the best  time for .edu link requests because professors and university staff are revising their websites for the new academic year.

[Dan-Petrovic]

Can you believe that I never considered this in all my years of link building. Thank you for bringing this up Peter!

[Dan-Petrovic]

Really good point. I find that most of my content ends up behind a login (therefore hidden from search engines). Do you know a way of going around this? Uni blogs are good for example.

[EGOL]

Over the past several years most professors have moved their course material websites into course management systems such as BlackBoard and WebCT.  These are almost always passworded.

It is getting harder and harder to get .edu links.

Also, SEOs have heavily spammed professors and .edu webmasters with link requests for crap content.  They are tired of being asked to consider crap for their recommended lists.   They now delete link requests immediately.   This is another reason why .edu links have become very hard to get.

[KeriMorgret]

Generally school ends in mid-late May (semester system) or mid-June (quarter system) and starts mid-late August (semester system) or mid-late September (quarter system). IT staff and department staff are often there year-round, even if the professors are not.

If you're specific in your targeting, you can look at the department or program home page and it will tell you the schedule, and even which professors are teaching which terms.

[PeterM22]

Thanks everyone!