Webometrics ranking: a less commercialised (and more objective) measure of ranking for institutions of higher learning

Studies have shown that academic website is the most important communication tool for higher education institutions as it helps them create awareness of their presence to the world. More importantly, the multi-dimensionality of higher education institution's activities, including their core academic missions (research, teaching and knowledge transfer), can be captured in their websites and Webometrics tool, used to measure the impact of these activities. This has led to the introduction of the Webometrics ranking, which is independent and has no commercial link. The review carried out in this study identified and described the relevance of Webometrics ranking to higher education institutions. It is therefore recommended that higher education institutions should try as much as possible to look into their web ranking past performances so as to be able to: 1) analyse their impact on the web; 2) understand their academic weaknesses, etc.