This article shows how universities represent themselves through the use of language on their institutional websites. Specifically, it compares and contrasts how a long established university, the University of Melbourne and a young university, Macquarie University construct their institutional identities and build up a relationship with potential students. A three-dimensional framework developed by Fairclough is utilised for three stages of discourse analysis. The analysis reveals that the websites of the two universities exhibit a promotional discourse which reflects the impacts of globalisation and the trend of academic marketing on higher education. This type of discourse is utilised by the universities to promote themselves in order attract more students and other resources. A comparison and contrast of the two university websites show that the representation of the two universities is not only determined by the social trends, but also their own tradition and reputation.