Are .edu links really useful for pagerank?

[bimo]

Personally, I think the main thing that EDU links provide your site is domain trust. Unlike most ranking factors, getting links from trusted domains like a .edu benefits EVERY URL on your site, not just the URL on your site being linked to by the .edu domain.

EDU links do NOT pass you any more PR than an equivalent non-EDU link would. How much PR an EDU or non-EDU link passes you is based on the PR of the page linking to your URL and the number of followed outbound links on that page that links to you. PERIOD.

However, EDU links to your site (like .GOV and some other types of "trusted" sites) do generally pass you a LOT of domain trust. If you don't understand domain trust, there is a recent SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday Video on Domain Trust and Domain Authority that does a good job of explaining it.

[Spiral]

If, the edu backlink is coming from a respected site is will help on increasing your pagerank .