Universities excluded from Webometrics amid fake rankings

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities has, for the first time, publicly announced the exclusion of dozens of universities from its upcoming July 2026 edition for promoting fabricated data and inflated positions derived from using ‘predatory’ websites that are copycat ranking sites.

On 9 June, Isidro Aguillo, editor of the Webometrics rankings, wrote on his X: “The following Turkish universities (Türkiye) will be excluded from the official July 2026 Ranking Web of Universities (webometrics info) for promoting fake data from criminal mirror websites.”

Also on 8 June, Aguillo wrote on X: “The following [18] universities that have promoted fake results from criminal copies of the Webometrics Ranking on their websites will be excluded from the next official edition in July 2026.”

This action was prompted by a University World News report on 27 May on the emergence of a network of “predatory” websites mimicking the official Webometrics Ranking of World Universities that has led to the spread of fraudulent data across official university reports in 29 countries in Africa, Arab states, Asia and Europe.

Fraudulent websites took advantage of the original site’s downtime to hijack the Webometrics brand and publish illegitimate ranks.

The Webometrics ranking, produced by the Cybermetrics Lab of the Spanish National Research Council and operating since 2004, assesses global universities based on their web presence, visibility and open access to academic knowledge.

Penalising malpractices

Aguillo told University World News: “They are using fake data for promoting themselves. Candidate students, visiting professors and researchers and government officials are receiving incorrect information.

“In fact, Webometrics has been excluding universities and even a full country due to different bad practices, mostly related to link buying, content inflation, fake Google Scholar profiles and even an attempt to buy ranks, but probably this is the first time to do so in public,” Aguillo indicated.

“The final aim is not to punish, but to teach professionalism,” added Aguillo, who is also head of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group of the Institute of Public Goods and Policies, which is part of the Spanish National Research Council.

Asked whether ranking agencies must follow this action as well, Aguillo said: “Yes, bad practices should be penalised. “The primary responsibility is from academic authorities or even higher education ministries. [We are] still not finished with the analysis. Probably two countries will be excluded at all plus many individual universities,” Aguillo stated.

Decisive actions against gaming rankings

Global higher education expert and director of strategic insights at RMIT University in Australia, Angel Calderon, told University World News: “For years, I have advocated for ranking agencies to take decisive actions against institutions that misrepresent ranking results or use inappropriate practices to achieve higher positions in global rankings.

“I am of the view that institutions that solicit responses for the reputation surveys conducted by QS, THE, and Clarivate should be excluded from the rankings for a minimum of one year, depending on the severity of the offence.”

Calderon noted: “Institutions that attempt to game rankings should face exclusion altogether.” He added that it is increasingly evident that ranking agencies must provide clearer guidance to institutions on purposeful participation in global rankings as well as the ethical considerations and risks associated with institutional misrepresentation.

“At the same time, ranking agencies must also demonstrate greater transparency in their methodologies and practices,” Calderon pointed out.

An ‘historic step for research integrity’

Speaking to University World News, independent researcher and consultant Dr Vladimir Moskovkin, author of the study titled “Pandemic of ‘Predatory’ Rankings: Why academic integrity fails the stress test”, said: “Isidro Aguillo’s decisive action to disqualify and exclude these universities from the upcoming July 2026 Webometrics ranking is a historic and long-overdue step for research integrity.

“It completely validates what our data has been showing: there is a coordinated, aggressive epidemic of ranking manipulation across emerging academic markets. However, we must emphasise that this ‘Black List’ represented by Webometrics is only a fraction of the issue.

“Our external monitoring shows that the expansion of fake publications continues relentlessly. This is particularly evident in the coordinated operations of news agencies and university press services in Indonesia and Türkiye, which have historically been the leaders of this fraudulent process.”

Webometrics protecting its media brand

Duncan Ross, former chief data officer of the Times Higher Education (THE) from 2015 to 2025, told University World News: “It’s interesting that the decision to exclude these universities is based on their apparent misrepresentation of Webometrics results rather than because they were providing misleading information that was used to generate the ranking itself.

“This feels more like Webometrics protecting its media brand than protecting its ranking, and it's unfortunate that they weren't able to take action against the websites that were copying their content.”

Ross added: “At the end of the day rankings providers are frequently reluctant to ban universities from their lists, and doing so publicly is rarer still. In the light of this it will be interesting to see how other ranking organisations deal with the rising challenges of misbehaviour in the sector, such as citation and reputation rings.”

Do universities knowingly promote fraudulent data?

University World News also reached out to QS World University Rankings and THE World University Rankings for reaction to the study but only received responses from QS.

Ben Sowter, QS senior vice-president for sector intelligence, told University World News: “In order for any ranking to hold true to its original purpose, it needs to take the integrity of its measures very seriously. Though not on this scale, QS has also had to exclude institutions from its list on occasion.

“It can be difficult, however, to determine whether unfortunate actions taken by individuals in the complex ecosystem of a university were either intentional or officially sanctioned. In this case some of these mirrored sites looked quite convincing on the surface, especially since the main Webometrics site had been taken down.”

Sowter explained: “I doubt anyone at a university would knowingly link to and promote a fraudulent list and that these instances, though unfortunate, were unintentional, in which case their exclusion seems like a strong response – though since the results seem no longer publicly available it may not resonate as intended.”

Dr Savo Heleta, a researcher and internationalisation scholar, agreed that it was likely that some institutions were not aware of the fake Webometrics sites and data. He told University World News: “This is an interesting development. I hope Webometrics provides a detailed explanation/statement about all this rather than posting short posts and lists on X only.

“This requires some form of investigation by Webometrics and provision of comprehensive and transparent information.”

Calderon, who is the author of a study titled “Sustainability Rankings: What they are about and how to make them meaningful”, said: “While it is encouraging to see that Webometrics is taking action to prevent the continued dissemination of fake results, it is important to ensure that there is clear evidence that institutions were aware they were knowingly promoting them.”

Calderon added: “It is important to recognise that Isidro Aguillo and his colleagues have made a significant contribution by maintaining and periodically updating the Webometrics Ranking, an important resource many of us have relied on.”

He noted that the affected universities are likely to become more aware of the pitfalls in making use of fake results. “Furthermore, I believe that across the globe there will be increased attention in identifying fake and predatory websites,” Calderon indicated.

Responding to the intention issue, Webometrics editor Aguillo said: “Since Webometrics has been published for 23 years, probably many of them did not check the source, not realising the website was fake. From our point of view, this is very serious unprofessional behaviour,” Aguillo indicated.

Evidence of deliberate institutional intent

The study author, Moskovkin, rejected suggestions that the excluded universities might be “unintentional victims” who simply fell for mirrored sites.

He said the investigative data and direct interactions with university leadership prove clear institutional intent in three ways.

First, he said that many universities were excluded by Aguillo’s absurd claims and did not respond when challenged about making false claims. “In most documented cases, institutions suddenly published official announcements claiming they had jumped 2,000 to 3,000 positions higher overnight,” he noted.

He said that he personally wrote three separate times to over two dozen university rectors and presidents across Indonesia, the Philippines, Turkey, Egypt, and other countries.

“In those communications, I explicitly explained the illegality of promoting these fake rankings and warned them of impending official sanctions from Webometrics. Not a single university leader responded or took down the fake data.”

The second reason was official institutional sanctioning of fabricated claims.

“These claims were not posted by isolated researchers or on student blogs. They were published as headline news on the official, verified homepages of the universities, authorised by their central administrations.

He said in higher education governance, the official domain is the legal voice of the rector’s office. “Using fabricated data to mislead education ministries, applicants, and donors after being explicitly warned constitutes deliberate institutional fraud.”

The third way was the use of coordinated and funded media campaigns involving real institutional budgets. He said, for instance, that data from the Center for Civic Education in Montenegro “explicitly documents how universities use paid news agencies and state media outlets to aggressively blast these fake ranking achievements nationwide”.

“You cannot ‘unintentionally’ allocate institutional funds, hire professional public relations firms, and orchestrate nationwide media campaigns by accident,” Moskovkin indicated.

“Therefore, treating this as an ‘unfortunate oversight’ is a dangerous compromise that protects bad actors by dismissing ‘institutional fraud’ as ‘unintentional complexities’ that an independent watchdog is urgently needed to call ‘fraud’ by its name,” Moskovkin said.

Independent international rankings watchdog required

“We” are in the final stage of launching a group of higher education experts, Moskovkin said, to address this systemic threat, the Global Observatory on Systemic University Rankings (GOSUR), which will act as an independent international watchdog that bridges the gap between internal ranking metrics and external academic fraud infrastructure.

“Our immediate planned activities include continuous decentralised monitoring through maintaining an open, globally distributed repository of verified coordinated regional media campaigns, deceptive university press release networks, and promotional platforms used to artificially game ranking systems,” Moskovkin noted.

He said the GOSUR will act as a global initiative (modelled after the Declaration on Research Assessment DORA and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment CoARA) allowing universities, research integrity bodies, and scholars “to officially sign and unite against ranking manipulations”.

Moskovkin concluded: “We will also provide ranking agencies (like Webometrics, THE, QS) with independent regional data to help them patch structural loopholes before manipulations occur. By establishing GOSUR, we aim to protect honest universities across the world from unfair competition and preserve the integrity of global higher education.”