Excellent Showing in Webometrics Ranking

26 February 2013

Heidelberg University’s internet presence best in Germany

In the latest Ranking Web of Universities, aka the Webometrics Ranking, Heidelberg University comes out on top in Germany. The ranking is published by the Spanish researcher group “Cybermetrics Lab” and evaluates the nature and scope of the internet presence of over 21,000 universities and higher-education institutions all over the world. Within Europe Heidelberg comes 19th, at the global level 97th. This is an improvement over the last Webometrics Ranking in 2012, when Heidelberg came 4th in Germany and 98th in the world.

The evaluation is based equally on the visibility of an internet presence – measured by the number of backlinks from other websites – and the “activity” indicator. This second criterion is gauged on the basis of the total number of websites hosted by an internet presence, the number of documents (presentations, pdfs, etc.) published there and citations. The Spanish “Cybermetrics Lab” research group belongs to the “Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas” (CSIC – Supreme Council for Academic Research), Spain’s largest public research institution. The Lab has been publishing the Webometrics Ranking twice yearly since 2004.