This study focuses on the effect of globalization on university ranking and current developments and challenges that HEIs face in the global higher education market. It provides detailed information about the origins of international ranking systems, diversification of university rankings and strategic planning of higher education institutes. Moreover, this study describes the global university classification, continuous exposure to elite universities, neglect of the humanities, arts and the social sciences researches, limited description of methods and indigent metrics. The expected effects on ranking system amid the COVID-19 crisis are mentioned which are widely being discussed by the researchers. The study concludes that there is a threat that universities which are investing time and money in accumulating and using statistics and data for the sake of improvement in their performance for the rankings may destabilize themselves from the development in other areas such as learning, teaching or community involvement.