In ranking the top online education directories, our goal was to show — using objective data from reliable sources — which directories are the most popular, according to visitor traffic and site backlinks. To this end, we used data for these four metrics to calculate the rankings:
Top 25 (see complete methodology below)
| Rank | Site |  |
 |
 |
 |
Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | eLearners.com | 7 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 37 |
| 2 | WorldWideLearn | 6 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 35 |
| 3 | ClassesUSA | 6 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 34 |
| 4 | EarnMyDegree.com | 5 | 10 | 7 | 10 | 32 |
| 5 | OEDb | 6 | 9 | 10 | 6 | 31 |
| 6 | Online-Education.net | 5 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 31 |
| 7 | Directory of Schools | 6 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 31 |
| 8 | DirectDegree.com | 5 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 30 |
| 9 | Education Center Online | 6 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 29 |
| 10 | Education Online Search | 6 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 29 |
| 11 | Degree Tutor | 6 | 6 | 9 | 5 | 26 |
| 12 | GuideToOnlineSchools.com | 5 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 25 |
| 13 | About Online Degrees | 4 | 5 | 10 | 6 | 25 |
| 14 | Education Connection | 4 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 24 |
| 15 | GetEducated.com | 6 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 23 |
| 16 | Distance-Educator.com | 6 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 23 |
| 17 | Degree.net | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 22 |
| 18 | Classes & Careers | 5 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 20 |
| 19 | Online Learning 101 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 20 |
| 20 | OOEN.net | 4 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 19 |
| 21 | Study Online | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 17 |
| 22 | OnlineDegrees.com | 0 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 16 |
| 23 | Baker’s Guide | 5 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 15 |
| 24 | Distance Learning College Guide | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 14 |
| 25 | Ed-X | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 14 |
Methodology
To begin, we found a set of Web sites that met a certain criteria. To become a member of the set of Web sites to be ranked, a Web site must, as of August 3, 2007:
- be listed in the Yahoo! Directory page Distance Learning > Web Directories; or
- be ranked in the top 100 for the phrase online education on Google; and
- be primarily a directory relating to online education.
For each metric, a score was assigned on a 0–10 scale. For Google PageRank, raw PageRank data was scored. For Alexa Rank, Technorati Link Count, and Compete People Count, the Web sites were broken up into deciles. If a Web site was in the 0>10% decile, a 1 was scored; for the 10>20% decile, a 2 was scored; and so on, up to a 10 being scored for the 90–100% decile. If no data was available, a 0 was scored.
The overall score for each Web site is the sum of the scores of the four metrics. In the event of a tie in overall score, the tie is broken according to the Alexa Rank raw data.
Raw Data for Entire Set
| Rank | Site | |
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | eLearners.com | 7 | 17,275 | 3,145 | 1,102,941 |
| 2 | WorldWideLearn | 6 | 38,688 | 1,343 | 237,661 |
| 3 | ClassesUSA | 6 | 8,369 | 651 | 1,145,243 |
| 4 | EarnMyDegree.com | 5 | 32,851 | 329 | 455,047 |
| 5 | OEDb | 6 | 81,619 | 2,628 | 13,984 |
| 6 | Online-Education.net | 5 | 91,696 | 424 | 195,622 |
| 7 | Directory of Schools | 6 | 154,457 | 776 | 43,179 |
| 8 | DirectDegree.com | 5 | 73,137 | 138 | 841,679 |
| 9 | Education Center Online | 6 | 139,585 | 383 | 21,284 |
| 10 | Education Online Search | 6 | 199,153 | 304 | 113,885 |
| 11 | Degree Tutor | 6 | 210,418 | 707 | 3,274 |
| 12 | GuideToOnlineSchools.com | 5 | 125,601 | 61 | 84,379 |
| 13 | About Online Degrees | 4 | 396,213 | 1,115 | 4,889 |
| 14 | Education Connection | 4 | 189,741 | 105 | 44,454 |
| 15 | GetEducated.com | 6 | 381,881 | 291 | 3,384 |
| 16 | Distance-Educator.com | 6 | 650,325 | 922 | 2,039 |
| 17 | Degree.net | 6 | 412,547 | 117 | 5,576 |
| 18 | Classes & Careers | 5 | 174,453 | 208 | 109 |
| 19 | Online Learning 101 | 4 | 333,262 | 40 | 30,858 |
| 20 | OOEN.net | 4 | 363,819 | 227 | 1,130 |
| 21 | Study Online | 5 | 681,266 | 42 | 1,986 |
| 22 | OnlineDegrees.com | 0 | 746,041 | 90 | 21,835 |
| 23 | Baker’s Guide | 5 | 1,064,537 | 20 | 2,925 |
| 24 | Distance Learning College Guide | 4 | 757,141 | 73 | 1,813 |
| 25 | Ed-X | 5 | 2,724,138 | 29 | 2,188 |
| 26 | Distance Learning Course Finder | 6 | 4,811,385 | 33 | 168 |
| 27 | Study2U | 5 | 830,255 | 9 | 0 |
| 28 | Online Universities | 3 | 3,876,869 | 4 | 187 |
| 29 | Online MBA Programs | 4 | 3,347,963 | 2 | 0 |
| 30 | Online College Degrees | 0 | 1,506,426 | 21 | 0 |
| 31 | online-degrees-info.com | 0 | 5,636,789 | 16 | 0 |
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