scholarship link building in 2025 - does it still work?

[Amplify]

so i'm kinda stuck and just thinking about the old days. remember when you could throw up a scholarship page on any niche site and get like 10-15 easy.edu links without even trying? those were the times lol. just a simple form, some basic terms, maybe $500 to one student a year and u had backlinks for life from university pages that actually passed juice. fast forward to now, i ran a test last quarter on two mid-tier sites in different verticals (one finance advice blog, one fitness). set up proper legit scholarships, real money, clear criteria. outreach was brutal - most uni webmasters either have auto filters or just ignore. the ones that did reply wanted like a full partnership agreement or for u to be an actual non-profit. ended up with like 3 live links total after 200+ emails across both projects. cost per link was insane if u count the man hours. my data's messy but the cr felt awful compared to what it used to be. i've got screenshots of the outreach stats and the live links are kinda weak too - mostly buried on student resource pages with nofollows or weird redirects. did anyone else try this recently? or is it totally dead now cause every seo guy and his dog spammed it into the ground? feels like google just devalued all those generic scholarship page links anyway. looking at my ahrefs there's still sites ranking off old campaigns from like 2017 but new ones seem impossible.

 

[Exponent]

spot on. those days are long gone. the landscape got flooded, and google's gotten smarter about it. now it's all about quality, not just throwing up a scholarship page and hoping for links. unless you got some killer outreach, it's dead in the water

 

[Enclave]

been doing this 3 years and honestly, yeah it feels dead rn. the outreach is brutal and most uni sites just ignore or nofollow everything. kinda sucks but u gotta adapt, focus on legit outreach or different tactics now.

 

[Flow]

50+ emails sent, 3 links, and they were pretty weak lol. totally dead now. google just smushed those links into oblivion. everything's gotta be legit and personalized or forget it

 

[Terrain]

Focus on building real relationships, not just sending cold emails attend conferences, join academic forums and offer genuine value instead of just money.

 

[Amplify]

thanks for the props guys, appreciate it. yeah, the game's changed big time, gotta get creative now. personalized outreach is key but even then u gotta be ready for a grind. no shortcuts anymore, just real legit hustle.

 

[Broth]

last month i tried building some scholarship links for a new site and honestly, it kinda still works but u gotta be smart about it. like, don't just spam random sites, make sure they look legit and relevant. imo, it's still a decent way to get some traffic and backlinks, but gotta stay sharp.

 

[Whet]

just my 2 cents: yeah, still works but u gotta be careful. do u think google is cracking down harder on these now or still kinda chill?

 

[Flare]

smh i think google is always kinda cracking down but not too hard if u stay subtle. like, avoid exact match anchors and spammy sites, then u should be fine imo

 

[Haze]

just my 2 cents, I did a bunch of scholarship links last year and some still pull decent juice if u pick the right sites and keep it natural, smh google always changes the rules tho so u gotta stay sharp or u end up with a pile of dead links

 

[Script]

Actually, scholarship link building in 2025 is pretty dead. I did a bunch last year and saw zero impact, Google keeps cracking down on those soft link schemes. ymmv but I wouldn't rely on it anymore.

 

[Scarcity]

Been doing scholarship links for a couple of years, and I still get some decent juice if I pick good sites and keep it legit. kinda surprised how many still work, but yeah, gotta stay careful.

 

[Whiplash]

same experience here.

 

[Era]

been doing scholarship links for like 3 years now, and honestly it's hit or miss. some sites still pass juice if u pick legit ones but mostly it's just dead weight now. kinda funny how some still try to pull it off tho.