Universities in Google: towards a multilevel analysis model of academic web positioning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/redc.2020.2.1691Keywords:
Search Engines, search engine optimization, SEO, Academic SEO, webometrics, universities, web visibility, web positioning, Google, evaluation modelAbstract
We propose a model of analysis of the web positioning of universities based on a vocabulary of keywords categorized according to the different university mission; it is applied to a university (Universitat Politècnica de València) to check its suitability. From a vocabulary of 164 keywords, 290 web queries were built and executed on Google, collecting the first 20 results obtained for each query. The results confirm that the universities obtain a variable web positioning according to the dimension linked to the web query and that the web pages related to teaching (especially Degrees) obtain the best ranks, even when executing web queries oriented to research. However, a low position is observed not only for the UPV, but also for all the Spanish on-site public universities (only a 27% of the Top 20 ranks correspond to these universities). It is concluded that a multilevel analysis is necessary to study the web positioning of the universities and that the proposed model is both viable and scalable. However certain limitations must be taken into account, as the dependence of the vocabulary used and the high variability of data, that must be considered in the design of this type of analysis models.
Downloads
References
Aguillo, I. F.; Granadino, B.; Ortega, J. L.; Prieto, J. A. (2006). Scientific research activity and communication measured with cybermetrics indicators. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(10), 1296-1302. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20433
Arbildi Larreina, I. (2005). Posicionamiento en buscadores: una metodología práctica de optimización de sitios web. El profesional de la información, 14(2), 108-124. http:// elprofesionaldelainformacion.com/contenidos/2005/ marzo/3.pdf https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2005.mar.03
Beel, J.; Gipp, B. (2009a). Google Scholar's ranking algorithm: an introductory overview. En: Birger Larsen, B.; Leta, J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI'09), pp. 230-241. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics.
Beel, J.; Gipp, B. (2009b). Google Scholar's ranking algorithm: the impact of articles' age (an empirical study). 6th International Conference on Information Technology: New generations (ITNG'09), pp. 160-164. Las Vegas, NV, USA: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ITNG.2009.317
Beel, J.; Gipp, B. (2009c). Google Scholar's ranking algorithm: the impact of citation counts (an empirical study). En 3rd International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS 2009), pp. 439-446. Fez, Marruecos: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/RCIS.2009.5089308
Beel, J.; Gipp, B. (2010). Academic search engine spam and Google Scholar's resilience against it. Journal of electronic publishing, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0013.305
Beel, J.; Gipp, B.; Wilde, E. (2010). Academic Search Engine Optimization (ASEO) Optimizing Scholarly Literature for Google Scholar & Co. Journal of scholarly publishing, 41(2), 176-190. https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.41.2.176
Broder, A. (2002). A taxonomy of web search. ACM Sigir fórum, 36(2), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1145/792550.792552
Chojar, B; Chauhan, A; Singh, A.V. (2012). Search engine optimization: A review. International Journal of Managment, IT and Engineering, 4(1), 493-503.
Codina, L. (2004). Posicionamiento Web: Conceptos y Ciclo de vida. Hipertex.net, 2. [En línea]. Disponible en: https://www.upf.edu/hipertextnet/numero-2/posicion_web.html [Fecha de consulta: 20/05/2019].
Codina, L.; Marcos, M.C. (2005). Posicionamiento web: conceptos y herramientas. El profesional de la información, 14(2), 84-99. http://www.elprofesionaldelainformacion.com/contenidos/2005/marzo/1.pdf https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2005.mar.01
Domínguez, D.C. (2010). Internet como fuente de información para el alumnado universitario. Cuadernos de documentación multimedia, 21, 141-157.
García-Carretero, L.; Codina, L.; Díaz-Noci, J. & Iglesias- García, M. (2016). Herramientas e indicadores SEO: características y aplicación para análisis de cibermedios. El profesional de la información, 25(3), 497-504. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2016.may.19
García Gómez, J. (2006). Posicionamiento y visibilidad web de las bibliotecas públicas españolas: situación actual y estrategias de desarrollo. III Congreso Nacional de Bibliotecas Públicas: La Biblioteca Pública, espacio ciudadano: Actas, pp. 417-429. España: Ministerio de Cultura.
Höchstötter, N.; Lewandowski, D. (2009). What users see- Structures in search engine results pages. Information Sciences, 179(12), 1796-1812.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2009.01.028
Hulth, A. (2003). Improved automatic keyword extraction given more linguistic knowledge. Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Empirical methods in natural language processing, pp. 216-223. PA, USA: Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.3115/1119355.1119383
Jansen, B. J.; Mullen, T. (2008). Sponsored search: an overview of the concept, history, and technology. International Journal of Electronic Business, 6(2), 114-131. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJEB.2008.018068
Jansen, B. J.; Booth, D. L.; Spink, A. (2007). Determining the user intent of web search engine queries. Proceedings of the 16th international conference on World Wide Web, pp. 1149-1150. NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1242572.1242739
Jansen, B. J.; Booth, D. L.; Spink, A. (2008). Determining the informational, navigational, and transactional intent of Web queries. Information Processing & Management, 44(3), 1251-1266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2007.07.015
Jansen, B. J.; Flaherty, T. B.; Baeza-Yates, R.; Hunter, L.; Kitts, B.; Murphy, J. (2009). The components and impact of sponsored search. Computer, 42(5), 98-101. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2009.164
Kaur, S.; Kaur, K.; Kaur, P. (2016). An empirical performance evaluation of Universities Website. International Journal of Computer Applications, 146(15), 10-16. https://doi.org/10.5120/ijca2016910922
Killoran, J. B. (2013). How to use search engine optimization techniques to increase website visibility. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 56(1), 50-66. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPC.2012.2237255
Ledford, J. L. (2015). Search engine optimization bible (Vol. 584). IN, USA: Wiley.
Lee, M.; Park, H. W. (2012). Exploring the web visibility of world-class universities. Scientometrics, 90(1), 201- 218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0515-6
Lopezosa, C.; Codina, L.; Gonzalo-Penela, C. (2018). SEO Off Page y construcción de enlaces: estrategias generales y transmisión de autoridad en medios de comunicación. El profesional de la información, 28(1), e280107. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2019.ene.07
Lopezosa, C.; Orduña-Malea, E.; Pérez-Montoro, M. (2020). Making Video News Visible: Identifying the Optimization Strategies of the Cybermedia on YouTube Using Web Metrics. Journalism Practice, 14(4), 465-482. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2019.1628657
Martin-Martin, A.; Orduña-Malea, E.; Harzing, A. W.; Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2017). Can we use Google Scholar to identify highly-cited documents?. Journal of informetrics, 11(1), 152-163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2016.11.008
Martín-Martín, A.; Orduña-Malea, E.; Ayllón, J. M.; Delgado-López-Cózar, E. D. (2016). Back to the past: on the shoulders of an academic search engine giant. Scientometrics, 107(3), 1477-1487. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-1917-2
Matošević, G. (2015). Measuring the utilization of on-page search engine optimization in selected domain. Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences, 39(2), 199-207.
Middleton, I.; McConnell, M. & Davidson, G. (1999). Presenting a model for the structure and content of a University World Wide Web site. Journal of Information Science, 25(3), 217- 219. https://doi.org/10.1177/016555159902500306
Muñoz-Martín, B. (2015). Incrementa el impacto de tus artículos y blogs: de la invisibilidad a la visibilidad. Revista de la Sociedad Otorrinolaringológica de Castilla y León, Cantabria y La Rioja, 6(4), 6-32. http://hdl.handle.net/10366/126907
Orduña-Malea, E. (2012). Propuesta de un modelo de análisis redinformétrico multinivel para el estudio sistémico de las universidades españolas (2010) [Tesis doctoral inédita]. Valencia: UPV.
Orduña-Malea, E. (2013a). Aggregation of the web performance of internal university units as a method of quantitative analysis of a university system: The case of Spain. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(10), 2100- 2114. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22912
Orduña-Malea, E. (2013b). Espacio universitario español en la Web (2010): estudio descriptivo de instituciones y productos académicos a través del análisis de subdominios y subdirectorios. Revista española de documentación científica, 36(3), e017. https://doi.org/10.3989/redc.2013.3.958
Pérez-Montoro, M.; Codina, L. (2017). Navigation Design and SEO for Content-Intensive Websites. Oxford, UK: Chandos Publishing Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100676-4.00006-7
Pinto Molina, M.; Alonso Berrocal, J. L.; Cordón García, J. A.; Fernández Marcial, V.; García Figuerola, C.; García Marco, J.; Gómez Camarero, C.; Zazo, Á. F.; Doucet, A-V. (2004). Análisis cualitativo de la visibilidad de la investigación de las universidades españolas a través de sus páginas web. Revista española de documentación científica, 27(3), 345-370. https://doi.org/10.3989/redc.2004.v27.i3.157
Rehman, K.; Khan, M. N. A. (2013). The foremost guidelines for achieving higher ranking in search results through search engine optimization. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 52(3), 101-110.
Rovira, C.; Guerrero-Solé, F.; Codina, L. (2018). Las citas recibidas como principal factor de posicionamiento SEO en la ordenación de resultados de Google Scholar. El profesional de la información, 27(3), 559-569. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2018.may.09
Shahzad, A.; Nawi, N. M.; Sutoyo, E.; Naeem, M.; Ullah, A.; Naqeeb, S.; Aamir, M. (2018). Search Engine Optimization Techniques for Malaysian University Websites: A Comparative Analysis on Google and Bing Search Engine. International Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, 8(4), 1262-1269. https://doi.org/10.18517/ijaseit.8.4.5032
Shi, J.; Cao, Y.; Zhao, X. J. (2010). Research on SEO strategies of university journal websites. The 2nd International Conference on Information Science and Engineering, pp. 3060-3063. Hangzhou, China: IEEE.
Vállez, M. (2011). Keyword Research: métodos y herramientas para identificar palabras clave. BiD: textos universitaris de biblioteconomia i documentació, 27. http://bid.ub.edu/27/vallez2.htm
Vállez, M.; Pedraza-Jiménez, R.; Codina, L.; Blanco, S.; Rovira, C. (2015a). A semi-automatic indexing system based on embedded information in HTML documents. Library Hi Tech, 33(2), 195-210. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-12-2014-0114
Vállez, M., Pedraza-Jiménez, R., Codina, L., Blanco, S., & Rovira, C. (2015b). Updating controlled vocabularies by analysing query logs. Online Information Review, 39(7), 870-884. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-06-2015-0180
Xu, A.; Gao, S. (2012). Discussion on usability and optimization issues in overseas university websites: A British university as an example. 2012 11th International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Applications to Business, Engineering & Science, pp. 482-485. Guilin, China: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/DCABES.2012.17
Yalçın, N.; Köse, U. (2010). What is search engine optimization: SEO? Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 487-493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.12.185
Yin, X., & Shah, S. (2010). Building taxonomy of web search intents for name entity queries. Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World Wide Web, pp. 1001-1010. NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1772690.1772792
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the print and online versions of this journal are the property of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.
All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You may read the basic information and the legal text of the licence. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 licence must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the final version of the work produced by the publisher, is not allowed.