Evaluation of the Appearance, Impact Factor, and Number of Visits regarding the Websites of Medical Sciences Universities in Iran

The present study tries to assess the appearance, impact factor, and number of visits regarding the websites of the medical sciences universities, dependent to Ministry of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education. To reach the goal, 41 of such websites were investigated considering their appearance using a control list composed of 59 factors. Furthermore, number of indexed pages of each website, number of all links, inlinks, self-links, total impact factor, as well as received impact factor of these websites were analyzed in order to evaluate their visibility and impact. In addition, in the current research number of visits of the mentioned websites and factors such as traffic rank in Iran and in the world, percentage of web clients who have viewed the mentioned sites, average number of pages viewed by clients, and level of view inside and outside Iran were extracted and studied based upon ALEXA site. Findings of the study indicate that, websites of Shiraz and Iran Medical Sciences Universities are in best conditions regarding design. The highest number of links and inlinks belonged to Tehran Medical Sciences University and the highest number of self-links relates to Mashhad Medical Sciences University. The highest total impact factor pertains to Shahroud and Iran Medical Sciences Universities, while the highest received impact factor belongs to websites of Isfahan and Gilan Medical Sciences Universities. Moreover, websites of Tehran, Shiraz and Mashhad Medical Sciences Universities have the highest traffic rank in Iran and in the world, in descending order.