Do .ac.uk (UK education / university sites) count in the same way as .edu backlinks

[jpeg80]

With regards to link trust are backlinks from .ac.uk (wiki on .ac.uk) count in the same way as .edu backlinks ?

[Vijay-Gaur]

Hi There,

First up, as per Matt Cutts, google will rank the most relevant results regardless of the domain name and extension. This is how they treat the Domain extension whether TLD or SLD for it's own ranking.

Now, coming to your question, I have no data to back my hypothesis but this URL has what my own hypothesis is all about. You should focus on getting the right backlinks that are relevant for your own website in terms of getting target traffic and conversion. Essentially, instead of focusing on domain name extension , focus on the right domain that would bring you results.

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/getting-backlinks-from-edu-and-org-are-beneficals-for-seo/92940/6

I hope this helps, let me know if you have further questions.

Regards,

Vijay

[GastonRiera]

Hi there!

tldr; Yes educational and governmental links are the same as any other link.

SEO has lot of myth, some came out of truth (because it worked some long ago) and some came out of the conspirational mind of tome people (sometimes triggered just to create engaging content).

My personal experiments, tells that educational and governmental links do not carry more "juice" than any other backlinks. 
I found that many people speak about those links as TOO VALUABLE because they are extremely hard to get. Guess what? Any extremely valuable link is also really hard to get.

I advise everyone that come across this topic, to focus their efforts in making the site great, not in finding impossible links that "promise" great result.

Hope I've cleared your doubts.
Best luck.
GR.

[MoosaHemani]

Longtime back Wil Reynolds discuss in one of his presentation that .EDU domains are same as any other normal domains. The reason why they become so important is that most people and reputable website easily link to .EDU or .GOV websites, which make themselves reputable with time.

But, at its core, saying that just because one domain s .EDU it will be respectable automatically, is not true.

So no matter if the URL contain .EDU extension or not, you should look into their link profile and see if the link profile is clean and valuable, you should consider getting a link from them like you would have done for .EDU website.

Just a thought!