A study of the Web visibility of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda on university websites

Purpose Universities play an important role in the promotion and implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This study aims to examine the visibility of information about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the websites of Spanish and major international universities, by means of a quantitative and qualitative analysis with an online visibility management platform that makes use of big data technology. Design/methodology/approach The Web visibility of the universities studied in relation to the terms “SDG”, “Sustainable Development Goals” and “2030 Agenda” was determined using the SEMrush tool. Information was obtained on the number of web pages accessed and the queries formulated (query expansion). The content indexed by Google for these universities was compiled, and finally, the search engine optimization (SEO) factors applicable to the websites with the highest Web visibility were identified. Findings The universities analysed are content creators but do not have very high Web visibility in Web searches for information on the SDGs. Of the 98 universities analysed, only four feature prominently in search results. Originality/value Although research exists on the application of SEO to different areas, there have not, to date, been any studies examining the Web visibility of universities in relation to Web searches for information on the 2030 Agenda. The main contributions of this study are the global perspective it provides on the Web visibility of content produced by universities about the SDGs and the recommendations it offers for improving that visibility.

Webometric Analysis of Institutional Repositories of Malaysian Public Universities

An institutional repository (IR) is one of the resources available in most university libraries that have attracted external publishers, search engines and social media to link, share and index IR content. The traditional citation-based indicators of a publication may not reflect the IR quality and have led to the creation of new indicators such as webometrics or web metrics. This study aims to analyse and explore Malaysia’s public university IR visibility, the numbers of an external link, page count, PDF count and URL web mention. We utilised backlinks web crawler and web search engine to collect raw data. A visualisation was created using the force-directed graphing method to interpret the IR network in the webspace. This study revealed that two research universities, Universiti Malaya (UM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), dominate web visibility based on webometrics indicators. All non-research universities are at the bottom of the rankings. This study shows institutional repositories from research universities are more visible in academic social networks and digital library sites. In contrast, non-research universities need to improve their visibility by mapping the universities’ IRs websites through hyperlink exchange and collaboration activities between each university and promoting the university publication to the academic social network sites.

Web visibility of Romanian universities – an analysis based on website analytics and social media data

There are many aspects that influence the importance of a university. Among these, web visibility is taking advantage of available technology, focusing on the benefits of internet and social media. This paper provides an analysis of the Romanian public and private universities websites, using alexa.com, a tool for website traffic analysis. Moreover, the official social media accounts of universities (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Flickr, YouTube and Instagram) were analysed, collecting several data such as: the number of likes and followers, the number of subscribers and the number of posts. The analysis was performed using ANOVA and Nonparametric Test for the presence via websites and Spearman and Pearson correlation to assess the correlation between social media and website traffic. In general, public universities from Romania have more visibility and a higher number of links to their websites compared to private ones. Based on the fact that Facebook and site content are often related, it should be noted that activity on Facebook may improve website rankings for Romanian universities.