How to Determine Legitimate Ranking Websites
In mStoner’s 2018 Mythbusting Enrollment Marketing, they surveyed students and campus professionals to see how closely aligned campus professionals were to student interests:
- 80% of campus professionals believe teens use US News rankings [and similar mainstream ranking websites, including Forbes, Niche, and Princeton Review]
- 70% of teens said they didn’t use rankings or indicated they didn’t use any of the top rankings [mStoner] asked about
However, mStoner went on to say that not is all lost for ranking websites for the small percentage of prospective students who take advantage of them:
- 4 in 10 teens who use US News are legacy [or not first-generation] students
- 68% [first-generation] teens who use US News [said they] find it useful
Rankings are certainly a feather in our University cap that we should be proud of, so it is up to you to promote in confidence how well Tarleton is doing in state, national, or international competitions. But not all rankings are legitimate, and these will do you more harm (and University embarrassment) than good. In fact, many of these fake ranking websites harm your prospective students or harm University marketing efforts by unintentionally promoting other universities over our own.
You will normally discover these ranking websites in emails that claim you ranked # on such-and-such degree, and they offer quid pro quo (you link to their website and they show off your supposed ranking). It is vitally important for the safety of the University and prospective students that you investigate these claims by reviewing their emails and/or websites before considering adding them to your website.
First Steps You Can Investigate
If you haven’t heard of them, like the mainstream examples mentioned above, you may want to take a close look at who is running the ranking website, including whether other high ranking universities have referenced them. Keep in mind, though, other universities have been caught not doing due diligence in their own investigations. While we discourage investigating suspicious websites on your own, if you have a means to securely view these websites and scan/protect your computer from potential viruses or data tracking code, you may follow along on the deeper dive testing practices as described.
No single successful test will legitimize the ranking website. As scam artists (bad actors) work to improve their imposter behaviors to convince you they are real, we must adapt and adjust to avoid being manipulated.
- Email Test: Did a human or robot send the email?
Before you consider selecting that link in your email, read their verbiage and take note of anything that doesn't sound human, looks misspelled or grammatically incorrect, or for that matter, truly relevant to your website. Typically, if you have earned recognition for ranking high on an international or national college ranking system, that should be termed as an award or recognition, not a "resource".
- Email Test: What methodology was used to rank universities?
This may be found in the email and/or on the ranking website itself (deep dive that should be done securely, so ask for assistance from Web Services if needed). They may provide a "methodology," and they may list schools on a webpage, but do the results make any sense? Are schools treated fairly in the result listings?
Don't get fooled by a fancy outline of weighted measurements. Read them. For example, how do you determine "Strength of Faculty?" Do you collect crowd-sourced votes on "Rate My Professor?" Or average the number of degree types held by professors? How about taking the grades of the students in their courses? And if you went that direction, if students make high grades, does that mean the professor taught well or gave their students easy breaks and lots of ways to make up absences and failed exams? Make sure the criteria are defined in a way that makes reasonable sense, something that can be calculated across all universities the same way.
And if they do provide a reasonable methodology, can you easily compare the criteria each are judged on, so you can tell how University A ranked higher than University B?
Any ranking system that is based on popularity votes, particularly those requiring users to create an account on that ranking website to vote, should be considered illegitimate.
- Search Results Test: Are they on the first page?
While avoiding directly selecting links on emails, do a search instead for the name of the ranking website, not the web address for the website. See what appears on the first page of results. Fake ranking sites are fighting to get up to that first page by convincing you, a credible university website, to link to them. Good for them, bad for you, since it is a black hat practice (if they are illegitimate) that lowers your ranking in search engine results in the process.
Investigation Deep Dive
We do not want you, your computer, or other property to be harmed in any way by investigating potentially malicious websites. Though these are simple tests, please do not conduct them on your own if you do not have a secure means to access their websites and protect against viruses and other harmful code. Contact Web Services for assistance on these investigations if desired.
- Source of Data and Criteria Analysis Test
You are looking for professionals that have a background in research and analysis of the data, not computers that collect information from databases and calculate it without quality assurance checking from a human analyst Check for an "About" page of some type that provides a human face or human references, preferably those that link to legitimate firms or major media outlets.
If the only information they provide is that they collected data from public databases that hold information about our university, then anyone with a programming background (and a designer keeping up with design/layout trends) can slap a website together and call it legit. Consider how anyone can post our Tarleton logo on their email, company signage, or print publications, but that doesn't make their association with Tarleton legitimate.
- Privacy Policy and Selling Data to a Third-Party Test
Any law-abiding website will describe how they use the information you or anyone else provides in a transparent manner. Will illegitimate sites try to convince you they have such a page? Yes! And many times, they may not even say "Privacy Policy," but because they know your strong suit is in English, they'll hope you don't read past their synonym trickery.
For example, you may not find a “Privacy Policy” on the website or nearby forms, but you may see a “Disclosure Policy” or “Disclaimer”, etc. If you review their policy, you may notice that it has nothing to do with how your information will be treated (i.e. if your information will be given or sold to a third-party without your conscious consent), a misleading black hat practice. Instead, you may find it describes a payment process for universities to disclose information about themselves along with an adjusted placement outside their supposed ranking (towards the top of the ranking list) for a price.
- Conscious Consent to Give Personal Data to a Third-Party Test
Many ranking websites provide a contact form to allow prospective students to communicate further with potential universities, however, many mislead them to believe they are giving the information to one university when it is, in fact, going to some other entity. They also manipulate prospective students to provide more information than they desired.
These are typically done through ranking website “Quick Searches” that supposedly lead you to a list of schools after you select your degree program filtering criteria, but before you can view the list (if there is one), you must let one of the schools obtain personal information about you.
The forms typically show that providing your personal information is optional, making you think you can keep looking through your school options. However, when you select “Continue”, they suddenly become required. At that point, you may also notice a small or barely visible disclaimer like the following:
Clicking the "Continue" button below constitutes your express written consent to be contacted by email, phone, text and prerecorded message by [randomly generated university that you didn’t intend to sign up with] at the number(s) you provided, regarding furthering your education. You understand and agree that these calls may be generated using an automated technology
Forcing anyone to provide and allow all channels of communication, including through automated technology, to be used to contact a person is a black hat practice. Per the CAN-SPAM Act, individuals should be able to opt-in and opt-out through any desired communication channel.
