What a school or college resource-page link is really worth
Tutors hear that one .edu link beats fifty ordinary ones. We went through the claim line by line, and the truth is smaller, more useful and easier to act on.
ExamArticles editorial team ·
Grade
Useful when relevant, overrated as a trophy
A resource page link from a real school can be a good citation for a revision site. The suffix itself carries no bonus, and Google staff have said so more than once. Judge the page that links to you.
- Relevant subject and level: worth having
- Old, abandoned resource list: low value
- Sold .edu subdomain pages: risky since 2024
Seven myths, marked
| Myth | Reality |
|---|---|
| A .edu ending adds extra authority. | Google has said top-level domains are not treated specially. Authority comes from who links to that page. |
| Any school page will do. | A page about chemistry homework helps a chemistry tutor. A page about school lunches does not. |
| Resource pages are always free to get on. | Some are edited by a librarian, some are dead, and some are quietly sold. Ask who maintains it. |
| More edu links, more rankings. | Ten links from related pages usually say more than forty from unrelated ones. No count can promise a position. |
| Student blogs on university servers are gold. | Many are old, thin and unmonitored. Google's 2024 policy on site reputation abuse targets some of this pattern. |
| The link must be dofollow to matter. | Since September 2019 Google treats nofollow, sponsored and ugc as hints. A nofollow citation can still send readers. |
| Edu links are cheap to buy. | Honest ones rarely are. A very low price for a school page is a reason to look closer. |
How to read a resource page before you ask for a link
Open the page first. Check the date at the bottom, the number of dead links, and whether the other names on the list look like real study resources, since a resource page links out only as well as it is kept.
Resource page links are one of the oldest tactics in the book, and Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush all still list them among the standard ways to find prospects. That does not make every page worth the email.
A living resource page has a named owner, a contact form and a few new entries in the past year. A page without these is a museum, and a link from a museum sends nobody anywhere.
If you want to try outreach yourself, send two lines and a specific reason, such as a free printable that fills a gap in their list. Keep a log of who you wrote to, because follow-ups are polite and spam is not.
Our market covers a different route: you buy placements on vetted sites and read price, Domain Rating and traffic first. Neither route replaces good pages, which you can plan with the mistakes list.
A short routine for one afternoon
- 1
Search for pages
Look for 'revision resources', 'useful links for GCSE', 'free study materials' with your subject and level. Ten minutes is enough.
- 2
Score each page
Open the scorecard and rate topic fit, ads and age of the page. Drop anything under five.
- 3
Write two lines
Say what is missing from their list, and offer a single page that fills the gap.
- 4
Log and wait
Note the date. Follow up once after two weeks; do not chase further.
Some education sites in the wild carry betting ads or adult banners in the side column. A link on such a page reflects on you in front of parents. The scorecard shows what to look for before you order.