In my series, “A beautiful city with outdated websites”, today I am writing about the official website of Mohan Lal Sukhadia University (MLSU), mlsu.ac.in.

Established in 1962, as Agriculture University it turned into a multi-faculty university in 1964 and was named as University of Udaipur. Later, in 1984 it was named as Mohan Lal Sukhadia University as a mark of respect in the memory of Late Mr. Mohan Lal Sukhadia.

Everything has changed over the period of time. But, when it comes to technology, the development still date backs to 90s.

The site is completely messed up, there is no proper alignment and formatting of content. When you land up on the home page you can’t decide where you want to go. You need to search the content from the dump. A book’s index and glossary are better organized then the home page of this site.

No headings have large fonts, different color or anything that could make them look different from the regular text on the site. It’s completely “help yourself” stuff.

Here are a few things I would like to talk about:

1. Layout and Design:

Needless to say, the site is poorly design. It has never changed since the day of its launch. There is a years old small photograph of University on About Us page.

2. Contact Us Page:

Contact Us page asks you to enter the recipient’s e-mail address and the address book doesn’t work. I tried sending a mail to my e-mail id but it also didn’t work. I am not sure if anyone would ever be able to send a message to MLSU using this contact form.

3. University Websites:

Under this heading, websites of different departments/faculties appear in two rows! The first link MCA doesn’t work. Biotechnology is another link which leads to nowhere. Other websites are also not something like to be talked about or appreciated excluding a few ones which have been developed properly.

4. Page Footer:

Scrolling down to the bottom of page there are links like: How to reach? , Udaipur, Rajasthan, Indian Universities and Courses, Campus Tour, UGC. This part of the site is completely dedicated to benefit websites which in no way are related to MLSU or are supposed to be on the website of MLSU.

First I clicked on Udaipur, both How to Reach? And Udaipur links land to the same page. This page is a clear example of how other websites or people who have been appointed to maintain mlsu.ac.in are benefitting some other websites.

Five out of seven links on the “How To Reach?” page lead to third party websites. These links are: Places of interest, City Map, History, Places to see and Other links.

Places of interest when clicked, leads to another website udaipur.net. This site has no content and there is only one image on the home page which is also of no use.

City Map, History and Places to Stay takes you to udaipuryellowpages.com. I don’t understand how city map, history and places to stay have been related with yellow pages!

When you scroll to the bottom of the page you will find Important Links Related to Udaipur. Again, there are links to third party websites udaipurplus.com, udiapur.net and udaipuryellowpages.com. This is a clear example of benefitting individuals.

Going back to the footer of Home Page, the Rajasthan link leads you to rajasthantourism.com. I wonder what is the need of putting a link to a website of a travel agent. It has no useful information about Rajasthan except for promoting its business, tour packages and generating revenue from ads.

I think the authorities are unaware of official portals of Rajasthan and Rajasthan Tourism. They are: rajasthan.gov.in and rajasthantourism.gov.in. A link leading to these websites would be helpful for visitors instead of taking them to a travel agent!

Indian Universities and Courses is another link on the list which takes you to a website, campusmatters.com, which no more exists. Even this site is in no way associated with MLSU or Udaipur.

5. Technical Aspects:

You must be wondering why I am talking about all these third party websites and links. How are they benefitted, even when their links get noticed rarely? Let me tell you these are all technical and SEO tricks. I am not going into all details but, keeping it short, mlsu.ac.in has a Google Page Rank of 5, any site getting a link back from this site will be benefitted in the search results on Google.

udaipur.net has no content, no pages, no links. It’s completely blank except for the image on home page. But, it has a Google PR of 3. This increases the value of a domain and it can be sold for thousand or even lakhs of rupees. Believe it or not, but it’s true.

The last link in the left column is Placement Portal, and again it leads to some other website. A logo of MLSU has been put and a subdomain has been dedicated to MLSU as http://mlsu.indiacareerportal.com/home.php information on this page is not updated by MLSU authorities. It’s just another way of promoting and benefiting other website.

The Search Job’s link takes you to naukri.com.

6. Search Box:

Don’t waste your time using this feature as it doesn’t work. Thanks!

7. Campus Tour:

Are you expecting some video, picture gallery or some 360^o virtual tour? Then you are surely going to be disappointed. There is nothing except the list of various departments.

8. Now, let me unveil the most amazing thing!

udaipurmirror.com has put up banner and logo of MLSU. When you open this site you will be welcomed with this message: “Welcome to Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, Rajasthan”. Majority of the links on this site pull information from mlsu.ac.in and display it as content of udaipurmirror.com.

On the home page you can see “University Website’s New Look” under “University Updates”. The content on the page is: “Dear Friends we have tried to renew the website of mlsu and we are eager to know your comments on that.”

The feedback link takes you to a contact form, you have the freedom to hit submit button leaving the form blank. Here is another surprise waiting for you, you will be taken to a new website, National Accounting Talent Search 2010-11.

After seeing all this, I am speechless! What should I say now; the institutional website of Mohan Lal Sukhadia University is more like a public park. Here are the similarities between public park and the website:

1. Poorly built.

2. No one cares about the maintenance.

3. No future plans.

4. Anyone can do anything as per his/her wish.

5. Broken links.