About uniRank
Overview & Mission
Established in 2005, uniRank™ is the leading international higher education portal and search engine, featuring reviews and rankings of over 14,000 officially accredited and recognized universities and colleges in 200 countries.
Our mission is to provide students, educators and academic professionals with reliable, unbiased information about higher education institutions globally, helping them make informed decisions about their academic future.
Higher Education Institution Inclusion Criteria
What we include
uniRank™ includes worldwide higher education institutions that meet these essential requirements:
- Official Recognition: institutions must be officially recognized, licensed and/or accredited by national or regional bodies such as Ministries of Higher Education or government-recognized accrediting organizations
- Degree Authority: must be authorized to grant at least three-year undergraduate degrees (Bachelor's) and/or postgraduate degrees (Master's and Doctoral)
- Traditional Format: provide higher education courses primarily through traditional face-to-face learning in on-site facilities
Free Inclusion: all University and College profiles are included and updated at no charge to the institutions.
What we do not include
uniRank™ currently does not include:
- Two-year degree institutions (community colleges, vocational colleges, training colleges)
- Distance learning-only institutions
- Specialized niche institutions (seminaries, theological schools, military academies, law enforcement schools)
- Institutions not meeting our core recognition and degree-granting criteria
University Ranking Methodology
Universities are ranked by our exclusive uniRank University Ranking™ which is listed in the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence.
Our web-based, non-academic university ranking system has been continuously published since May 2005, with periodic methodology refinements to ensure accurate results and adapt to evolving web intelligence sources.
University Ranking components and algorithm
The current uniRank University Ranking™ is based upon an algorithm including 4 unbiased and independent web metrics extracted from 3 different web intelligence sources:
- 55% - Majestic Referring Domains (minimum Trust Flow)
- 35% - Similarweb Global Rank
- 5% - Moz Domain Authority
- 5% - Majestic Trust Flow
Methodology Evolution
Since Google PageRank was publicly discontinued in April 2016, Moz Domain Authority was introduced in July 2016 as the closest alternative metric.
In January 2017, we switched from using Majestic’s total count of referring subnets to the number of referring domains that meet a minimum Majestic Trust Flow threshold. This new filtering method allows us to better assess the number of quality referring domains each university’s root domain has. It also mitigates cases where the count of referring links or domains is artificially inflated through unnatural or paid link schemes, which are strongly discouraged and violate both our guidelines and Google’s.
The Similarweb Global Rank was introduced in January 2017 to verify, complement, and enhance the data provided by Alexa Global Rank. When Alexa ceased its service in May 2022, Similarweb became the sole source of estimated traffic rankings starting with the July 2022 edition.
Ranking validity and reliability
University rankings—academic or otherwise—are not infallible and should not be the sole criterion for choosing where to study. Ranking methodologies can be prone to errors or biases at various stages, including the selection and weighting of criteria, the reliability and availability of data sources, and the data collection process. The uniRank University Ranking has particular limitations when evaluating higher education institutions in countries with low internet access or penetration rates.
University Ranking Process
Web metrics data are collected within the same week to minimize temporal fluctuations and ensure comparability. A pre-computation filter is applied to detect outliers in the raw data. Additional investigation and review of Similarweb Global Rank data are performed for universities using a subdomain (highly not recommended) as their official institutional homepage.
Once outliers are identified and subdomain data reviewed and adjusted, web metrics are normalized to a 0–100 scale, accounting for the logarithmic nature of Moz Domain Authority and Similarweb Global Rank. The normalized values are then aggregated using a weighted average algorithm to produce the final score and web ranking.
University Ranking Algorithm Disclosure
The University Ranking algorithm is not publicly disclosed to protect copyright and to reduce the risk of manipulation by unethical university webmasters seeking higher rankings. This approach is similar to Google’s policy regarding its search engine ranking algorithm. As the uniRank University Ranking™ is a non-academic ranking, the requirements for full methodological transparency and reproducibility, as recommended by the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions, are less stringent than for academic university rankings.
Unranked Universities
Some higher education institutions are not ranked and are listed at the bottom of each country listing for one of the following reasons:
- The university does not have an official website.
- The university’s official domain was not reachable for an extended period during the ranking process.
- The university uses an internal URL as its official institutional website. Using internal URLs instead of root domains or subdomains is highly discouraged.
- The university’s official website is hosted on free global platforms such as wordpress.com, blogspot.com, or similar services (e.g., unitaldili.wordpress.com).
University Ranking Aim
The uniRank University Ranking™ aims to provide an approximate global ranking of universities and colleges based on their web presence and popularity, considering estimated traffic, domain authority, and quality link metrics. Our goal is to offer a non-academic league table of the top universities worldwide using valid, unbiased, and independently sourced web metrics rather than data submitted by the universities themselves. This approach is particularly useful for international students and academic staff who want to gauge the popularity of a higher education institution in a foreign country.
We do not claim to rank universities or their programs based on the quality of education or academic services provided. The uniRank University Ranking™ is not an academic ranking and should not be used as the sole criterion for choosing where to study.
How to Publish Your University Rank
To display your uniRank University Rank™ on your institutional website, click the share link under your university’s rank to access the embedded HTML code. Once added, your rank will automatically update whenever we publish new university rankings twice a year, in January and July.
Social Media University rankings
Since 2018 we publish four new university rankings aimed at appraising the social media presence and popularity of higher education institutions on the four main social platforms:
- uniRank Facebook University Ranking™
- uniRank Twitter University Ranking™
- uniRank Instagram University Ranking™
- uniRank YouTube University Ranking™
Geographical Classification
uniRank™ follows the United Nations’ geographical classification of regions, as outlined on the webpage "Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49)" (see the Geographic Regions section) published by the United Nations Statistics Division. For this reason, countries like Turkey and Cyprus are included in the Asian region, even if, politically, they might be considered part of Europe. As noted by the United Nations Statistics Division, the assignment of countries or areas to specific geographic regions is for statistical convenience and does not imply any political or other affiliation. uniRank adopts the same methodology and philosophy.
University Information Updates
Data and information are added or updated on a monthly basis. The uniRank University Ranking™ is updated and published twice a year, in January and July. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter to receive notifications on when the new University rankings are published.
All University and College profiles are included and updated at no cost. A special thanks go to all Universities and Colleges that are participating in this project and helping us maintain our database up-to-date.
How to add a University
To submit a missing accredited higher education institution that satisfies the criteria and requirements explained above, please find the appropriate country listing in the portal and click on at the bottom right of the University list. Please read the uniRank™ selection criteria above (What we include section) before submitting a missing University.
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- adding a link to us
- reporting errors
- following us on Facebook and Twitter
- recommending it to your friends and colleagues
Contact us
Click here to contact us. Please note that we are not able to provide guidance counseling or recommendations on Universities.
Alternatively, you can mail us at:
Canada Bay New South Wales 2046
Australia
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Terms of Service
To learn about the uniRank Terms of Service or for any request of republishing uniRank's copyrighted content please visit our Terms of Service page.
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