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Academic Excellence, Website Quality, SEO Performance: Is there a Correlation?

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Giannakoulopoulos

    (Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University, 7 Tsirigoti Square, 49100 Corfu, Greece)

  • Nikos Konstantinou

    (Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University, 7 Tsirigoti Square, 49100 Corfu, Greece)

  • Dimitris Koutsompolis

    (Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 5 Stadiou Str., 10562 Athens, Greece)

  • Minas Pergantis

    (Laboratory of Interactive Arts, Ionian University, 7 Tsirigoti Square, 49100 Corfu, Greece)

  • Iraklis Varlamis

    (Department of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens, 70 Eleftheriou Venizelou Str., 17676 Athens, Greece)

Abstract

The academic excellence of universities around the globe has always been a matter of extended study and so has the quality of an institution’s presence in the World Wide Web. The purpose of this research is to study the extent to which a university’s academic excellence is related to the quality of its web presence. In order to achieve this, a method was devised that quantified the website quality and search engine optimization (SEO) performance of the university websites of the top 100 universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) Shanghai list. A variety of tools was employed to measure and test each website and produced a Web quality ranking, an SEO performance ranking, as well as a combined overall web ranking for each one. Comparing these rankings with the ARWU shows that academic excellence is moderately correlated with website quality, but SEO performance is not. Moreover, the overall web ranking also shows a moderate correlation with ARWU which seems to be positively influenced by website quality and negatively by SEO performance. Conclusively, the results of the research indicate that universities place particular emphasis on issues concerning website quality, while the utilization of SEO does not appear to be of equal importance, indicating possible room for improvement in this area.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Giannakoulopoulos & Nikos Konstantinou & Dimitris Koutsompolis & Minas Pergantis & Iraklis Varlamis, 2019. "Academic Excellence, Website Quality, SEO Performance: Is there a Correlation?," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-25, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:11:y:2019:i:11:p:242-:d:288192
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mmantsetsa Marope & Peter J. Wells & Silvia Florea, 2014. "University Rankings: The Many Sides of the Debate," Management of Sustainable Development, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 6(1), pages 1-4, August.
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    4. Cristòfol Rovira & Lluís Codina & Frederic Guerrero-Solé & Carlos Lopezosa, 2019. "Ranking by Relevance and Citation Counts, a Comparative Study: Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, WoS and Scopus," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, September.
    5. Mmantsetsa Marope & Peter J. Wells & Silvia Florea, 2014. "University Rankings: The Many Sides of the Debate," Management of Sustainable Development, Sciendo, vol. 6(1), pages 1-4, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Veglis & Dimitrios Giomelakis, 2019. "Search Engine Optimization," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-2, December.
    2. Goran Matošević & Jasminka Dobša & Dunja Mladenić, 2021. "Using Machine Learning for Web Page Classification in Search Engine Optimization," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, January.
    3. Karol Król & Dariusz Zdonek, 2021. "The Quality of Infectious Disease Hospital Websites in Poland in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-19, January.
    4. Muhammad Fakruhayat Ab Rashid & Sharifah Rohayah Sheikh Dawood, 2024. "Statistical Evaluation of Webometric Analysis of Tourism Websites in ASEAN Countries," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(2), pages 2389-2406, February.
    5. Karol Król & Dariusz Zdonek, 2020. "Aggregated Indices in Website Quality Assessment," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-23, April.

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