Marketing On a .EDU Domain

wrttnwrd, an Internet marketer, opens a can of whup-ass on LinkAdage and the Pickering Institute, which have teamed up to rent blog space on a .edu domain for $50 a month. Technically legal maybe but undermining of the trust a .edu engenders.

Comments

Trust in .EDU domains

[Mrs. Grundy]

Last time I was at an .edu domain all I saw was photos of perfectly diverse students hanging out on perfectly manicured lawns. Not really something that engendered trust. Why would anyone have any trust in a blog just because the author is associated with a University? All sorts of Universities have faculty and students associated with them who can say anything they like on their "edu" blogs just like the .com blogs. One might think that bloggers associated with universities may be smarter or better writers, but I doubt experience would confirm this.

Re:All the education you need!

[edlinfan]

As far as I see it, advertising on an EDU is perfectly ethical if it is used to subsidize bandwidth (and NOT line the pockets of a greedy bureaucrat).

Not only do our tax dollars go to school so that they can have .edu domain names, but they are being exploited.

And when the schools introduce a method of reducing their need for your hard-earned money, you complain?

Really? who looks at .edu?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Very few link clickers look at and parse URLs and very few really know the difference between .edu, .net, .com etc.

And anyone savvy enough to know the difference should also be sceptical enough to not get suckered.

Re:Really? who looks at .edu?

[Galactic Dominator]

The question of whether a user knows the difference between .edu, .com etc is not the point(although I would disagree in that most users would trust an .edu result over .com those that are capable of using a search engine anyways).

The reason this is a worthy news story is that search engines value inbound links coming from a .edu over equivalent .com page/site. It would be much easier to game the system by building up PR and trust for the .edu domain and then either selling high-weight links off it, or use it benefit your own company's site(s) and the organic keyword specific to them.

My boss forwarded me the announcement this morning but I declined as to me it's begging google to blacklist you.

Here's a bit from the email...

Many webmasters are paying a lot of money for a single page or link on an EDU domain. So could you imaging what you could do with an EDU Blog that you control and write posts to whenever you want for only $50 per month? Any webmaster that knows a bit about web marketing could turn one of these EDU blogs into a marketing powerhouse and money maker very easily. That's why your comment is irrelevant...to some extent the people that utilize these services don't care about their reader or what they trust or don't. They care about what the search engines trust.

Interesting to say the least...

[RasputinAXP]

It seems that pi.edu is not a CHEA accredited institution. It claims founding in 1994 and accreditation by the Association of Christian Schools and Colleges (ACSC) which is not on the nationally recognized accreditation list. This means it's not supposed to be valid for them to receive a .edu TLD for their institution. They've only had it since 2006, and their technical contact uses a hotmail address according to the .edu whois on whois.educause.net.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Is the "Pickering Institute" for real?

[Animats]

Does the "Pickering Institute" even exist? Their home page is a WordPress blog. They have no contact information other than an e-mail address.

Their domain registration has an address of "2 Cityplace Drive, Suite 200, St. Louis, MO", which is also the address of Bin95.com, which does industrial equipment maintenance training.

Hypocrisy, slashdot.org is thy name

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'all got some big brass ones to post an article like this... aren't .org domains supposed to be for non-profit organizations, et al?

Anyone else notice that slashdot.com redirects to slashdot.org, and not the other way around, as it should?

Hey, I've got no problem with Slashdot being a for-profit venture: I'm rooting for you, honest I am. But, for the sake of all that's nerdy, how about a little less hypocrisy and a little more honesty in advertising?

Yes, I know: "I must be new here".

Let the modbombing begin!

Re:Hypocrisy, slashdot.org is thy name

[Anonymous Coward]

Your information is outdated. According to Internic (http://www.internic.net/faqs/org-transition.html), .org was originally intended "for organizations that weren't commercial entities, educational institutions, network providers, or governmental agencies. In recent years registration in .org has become open and unrestricted (it will stay that way under its new operator.)"

Probably should have changed the default wp passwd

[jdigital]

Woops...

:)

Re:All the education you need!

[Seumas]

I don't see what the problem is. If it's okay to advertise mcdonald's on a child's report card, stuff his school full of taco bell, pizza hut, subway as well as pepsi and coke machines and pump "educational" television feeds with customized advertising to them in the class room, then what's wrong with a banner ad or something on a *.edu?

It's 2008. I think the idea that educational institutions are anything but commercial meat-grinders has expired.

Yes they are!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

They emailed me a diploma!

Scam

[mbulge]

More proof that not even the editors read the links. The "about" page of the .edu in question links to a Rickroll video, and the application for registration immediately asks for credit card info using poorly written English. I suspect people will be more likely to fall for this because of the edu domain, which is a shame.

Re:Probably should have changed the default wp pas

[jdigital]

the odd link is a rickroll now.

Re:About the site

[nacturation]

Think about it: "pi.edu" that's prime internet real-estate. I don't know... it all seems a bit irrational to me.

Re:All the education you need!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's 2008. I think the idea that educational institutions are anything but commercial meat-grinders has expired.

No, the idea is very much alive. The existence of these various outrages doesn't mean the idea is dead; it means we should fight against the new outrages that pop up.