Abstract:
Since the growing content on the internet exponentially, search engines have become the starting point for most websites. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a method for increasing the website ranking of the search engine results. Websites need to take SEO criteria into account in order to improve the performance of their search engines results and attract more users. This paper addresses the challenges faced by universities websites in Gaza Strip in terms of search engine results. Ten major universities in Gaza Strip included in our case study. Several SEO elements were used in qualitative and quantitative analysis. The quantitative analysis shows that the Domain Authority is low when compared with other related websites. This affected the ranking of these sites on the search engine. The Islamic University's website is ranked first by Alexa and Google Page Ranking, followed by Al Quds Open University, Al Aqsa University and the Palestinian University. The qualitative analysis showed that universities websites in Gaza face set of unique challenges for SEO. These challenges are Common Keywords, SEO Friendly URL, Image Alt, Inline CSS, Structured Data, Custom 404 Error Page, Disallow Directive, URL Canonicalization, Plain Text Emails, Site Loading Speed, Page Objects, CDN Usage, JavaScript Minification, and CSS Minification. It also finds that the response time of the websites is high and the security level is 54.2 %.In light of these results, we emphasize solving these problems to improve the website's search engine performance and make it more user-accessible.
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