I have seen this question asked in a lot of forums on the Internet lately and I will soon tell you where to get .edu links, but first I need to answer another question I have seen lately.

Are .edu links any different from links from .com pages?
According to Matt Cutts blog a link from a .com page is no different from a link from a .edu page. Matt says “Google doesn’t treat .edu and .gov links differently, those pages just usually have a lot of PageRank.” (see the video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8670651505). So by just having a link to your site from a .edu domain will not by itself give you a lot of PageRank, you need to get links from pages with high PageRank to get higher PageRank for your site.

Since Google doesn't threat .edu domain any different then other domains why should other search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Live.com do that?

Still want links from .edu domains?
Since you will not get any better ranking in search engines after a few .edu links then from a couple of .com links, why do you want .edu links for? My answer is simply: If it's hard to get, then I want it!

Where do I get an .edu link to my site?
There are a few places where you can get .edu links to your site(s). For example at Adison University (http://www.adison.edu) you can get your own .edu blog for $35/month or if you're active in their forum you can get one link to your site for free. You can also buy expired domain names with links from sites like harvard.edu or you can (this is the hard option) create your own educational institution and register a .edu domain name at http://www.educause.edu/edudomain/show_faq.asp?code=EDUELIGIBILITY. You can of course also become a student at any university with a .edu domain and setup your own student page (most universities offer some free space to their students to setup a personal home page).

You can also get a link from xavier.edu.eu.org if you like (it's not a real .edu domain, but the domain contains .edu ).