Domain-Guides

LinkAdage Auctions and the Pickering Institute have teamed up to offer blog space on a .edu domain, for rent.

That’s right folks! You can now publish your very own .edu blog, without all the bother of actually being a school!!!

That’s not OK. In the words of my favorite Pulp Fiction character, it’s pretty @#$)(*! far from OK.

It’s like putting soda pop machines in grade schools, only more subtle.

Anyone with a shred of common sense understands that this practice:

• Takes advantage of a vulnerable population…
• …and search engine algorithms that expect educational information at .edu domains.
• Is in poor taste.
• And is generally bad for the community.

For those who don’t know: Links from EDU domains may get more authority in the search rankings. So a lot of folks prize links from .edu web sites. That’s why this could be a compelling offer to unscrupulous marketers.

The Offer

Linkadage Auctions sent me an e-mail today saying:”LinkAdage is now offering the web’s first open to the public EDU blog community. This is a very unique opportunity for Webmasters and SEOs not affiliated with a university to control a personal EDU blog.

The opportunity that running one of these blogs presents is tremendous. Your blog will be a legitimate EDU blog that you can use to promote your business and increase revenues.”

Turns out they’re renting space on the domain blogs.pi.edu to all comers who promise not to publish porn, sell drugs, gamble or do other obviously bad stuff.

On the site itself, they introduce the service this way:

“PI.edu is now offering sub-domain blogs that will allow you to educate your potential customers on your field of expertise.”

Nice choice of words. Note how they slipped ‘educate’ in there……….. more