Comparing webometric with web-independent rankings: a case study with German universities

TL;DR

This study investigates whether hyperlink-based webometric indicators can effectively rank German universities by analyzing their interlinking structures and comparing the results with official and independent rankings.

Contribution

It introduces a simple webometric ranking method based on hyperlink analysis and evaluates its correlation with established university rankings.

Findings

Link impact does not reliably indicate university prestige

Webometric rankings differ significantly from official rankings

Hyperlink structure analysis offers limited insight into university prestige

Abstract

In this paper we examine if hyperlink-based (webometric) indicators can be used to rank academic websites. Therefore we analyzed the interlinking structure of German university websites and compared our simple hyperlink-based ranking with official and web-independent rankings of universities. We found that link impact could not easily be seen as a prestige factor for universities.