Web Visibility

Purpose: Nowadays, average visit duration through the university library websites and bounce rate of the web users, are two important factors from the standpoint of Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The main objective of this paper is to study the two mentioned factors in Iranian university library websites and interactive relationship analysis between them. Method: This study opted for the webometrics approach. The research community was 42 library websites of Iranian governmental universities affiliated with the ministry of science, except Payam- Noor and Farhangian. These mentioned websites were analyzed by the descriptive and analytical survey methods. The data had been extracted by the "Similarweb" analytical tool (3 months: January to March 2020). Three software, "SPSS22", "Excel" and "LibreOfficeCalc", were used for data analysis. Findings: The lowest (best) bounce rates from the library website were observed in the websites of the Central Library of Allameh Tabatabai University and the Digital Library of the University of Guilan, respectively. The highest (best) "average visit duration", was observed in the digital library websites of Isfahan university of technology and the university of Tehran, respectively. Conclusion: The "bounce rate" of members of the research community has been observed between 13% and 100%. Also, "average visit duration" has been seen from 0 to 300 seconds. Iranian university library websites from the standpoint, two factors that impacted Google SEO, have been seen in the weak level. A significant inversely correlation was obtained between "Bounce Rate" and "Average Visit Duration" in 42 Iranian governmental university library websites with an amount of 0.6.

The growing accessibility of web pages to internet users, coupled with the increasing reliance on search engines for daily tasks, underscores the rising importance of search engine optimization (SEO). This research aims to explore the impact of the web visibility index, a key SEO metric, and the utilization of SEO tools on the optimization of university websites. The novelty of this study lies in its examination of the specific influence of the web visibility index and other SEO metrics on university website optimization. Findings reveal significant enhancement in the web visibility index across most universities studied. A comparative analysis of the top 20 universities and their associated libraries sheds light on the factors contributing to increased web visibility. SEO tools and the SISTRIX Toolbox were employed for comparative purposes. Results indicate that the University of UOC boasts the highest web visibility index of 0.0276, while UNED, USE, and UV universities have a web visibility index of 0, indicating the lowest visibility.