Google gets exclusive: some IHEs can't get listed in Google's University Search

University Business, April, 2005

Google must be really busy. According to a number of IHE administrators, despite many attempts to list their schools on Google's free University Search, they have yet to see their schools' names on the list.

The list features names of IHEs with links to their websites. After clicking on the school's name, you are taken to a page where you are then allowed to search within the school's website.

On the Google webpage describing the procedure, says Mark Mende, coordinator of electronic communications at St. Lawrence, "there is an insinuation that the more people who submit your school, the better."

Jennifer Canup, of the UTHSC-H's Office of Public Affairs, thinks the "instructions are very vague" on how to submit a school, and says, "Some campuses have even advertised to their students and faculty to submit their schools to Google," with no luck. Canup knows of more than 20 IHEs that cannot get listed.

Some are also beginning to question the value of being listed. "I'm not sure of the importance of being listed from a recruiting point of view," says Mende. St. Lawrence has 2,000 students enrolled this year.

"I couldn't say we're losing money or traffic," says Scott Crevier, web developer at St. Norbert College (Wis.), which also has 2,000 students, and has been continually submitting the school since February 2004. "We already get a lot of traffic."

But it is common knowledge that Google is a high-profile website, "and we're trying to make sure we're not excluded from the list," Crevier says.

It is not even clear if it is a matter of only small, or lesser-known IHEs being excluded from the list since The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which includes a medical school, could not get listed either.

"If it's a popularity contest, they should make it clearer," says Mende. Google could not be reached for immediate comment.