Search Engine Ranking Factors

Privileged Links / Domains

Some kinds of incoming links are worth more than others because they are thought to be harder to fake in large numbers and because the domains on which they exist are in certain "privileged" classes. (They also tend to come from authority pages because of the high number of links pointing to them.) Privileged links include links from domains with extensions belonging to educational institutions, the military, and governments (although an authority page can belong to a website with any domain extension). In the United States, these are primarily the .edu, .mil, and .gov extensions, but this is true of most such extensions worldwide. Links from such domains can have pleasantly-surprising effects on your search engine rankings, so they are highly sought-after by savvy website operators.

Our explanation of the TrustRank algorithm may help clarify why some types of domains are privileged.

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