.edu TLD audit hub
United States accredited-education TLD — restricted to recognized degree-granting institutions.
The .edu TLD is administered by Educause under contract with the US Department of Commerce. Eligibility is restricted to US-based postsecondary institutions accredited by an agency on the US Department of Education's list — community colleges, four-year universities, and specialized accredited programs. The restriction has been consistently enforced since the early 2000s, and pre-existing non-conforming registrants from before the 2001 policy change have been progressively grandfathered out. There are roughly 7,000 active registrations. DNSSEC adoption is widespread and many institutions run their own authoritative DNS infrastructure. SEO treats .edu as a strong authority signal — backlinks from .edu sites are highly weighted by most ranking systems, comparable to .gov in trust effect. Email deliverability is broadly excellent but specific institutions have their own anti-spam policies and many universities run their own MX servers with custom filtering rules. We pay attention to MX configuration and SPF alignment when auditing .edu properties.