Abstract:

Rankings Role is simplifying and clarifying a complex scenario for students and interested parties. The role of rankings is offering consumer information to the many buyers and sellers participating in the globalized game of higher education services. Higher education and research institutions are competing at the international and national levels for the “best students”, the “best researchers” and, in particular, for funding. Potential students, in their turn, want to know where they should preferably invest their time and money to get the “best” education growth. This study is an analysis study which applying a combination method of both qualitative and quantitative to inspect the role of rankings applied and presented in the official website of 4 metropolitan Catalan universities: UAB, UPC, UB, UPF to verify how rankings position assisted their marketing strategies in their official websites by applying webs indicators such as: technical, marketing and rankings indicators for better burnishing their images among the other universities. This paper also discusses about the rankings role in the marketing strategy of the Catalan universities.

This investigation tries to recognize the significant role of ranking being used in the website of a university by applying 3 instruments as:
1. Webpage guideline, to understand and verify how the web indicators are applied by university and how differently they make advantage and uses them through their websites.
2. Questionnaires, by participating of the PhD and master students for better analyzing student’s perception regarding the rankings positions of the universities and its effects on their selection, and to recognize how positively the rankings positions will affect the marketing strategy of a university to attract more elite students.
3. Interview, by the staffs of the communication and promotion departments of those 4 mentioned universities to see how the official webpage of universities works and how they use their marketing strategy through applying the rankings notification through their website for better presenting and manifesting their universities.

The literature review of this research is based on four main related sections to the subject of this research as:
1. Rankings: discusses completely about the history and the emergence of rankings through the past decades and how rankings became a valuable measurement tools of measuring university education and teaching quality.
2. Marketing aspects: is concerned about the marketing aspects linked and applied to higher education especially regarding the rankings positions and its effect on marketing strategy of the university.
3. University website: discusses about the important role of university official web page as a main media to manifest the rankings success and explains how exactly university webpage works and being designed and constructed.
4. Higher education system of Catalonia: this section discuses about the higher education system of Catalan universities and the role of ranking position and the progress of the four aforementioned Catalan universities in the international university ranking.

The research questions are:
1. How do these Catalan universities use their rankings positions in their marketing strategies for better competing?
2. What are the outcomes for the 4 mentioned Catalan universities: UAB, UPC, UB, UPF, by highlighting their rankings positions through their official website

Keywords:

Higher Education, Marketing Strategies, University Ranking, Branding, Official website.