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

Abstract

[EN] 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.