The world's top tennis players regularly confront each other on the court, but who is the winner on the web?
Keepalert.com has analyzed online visibility of the world's top players. The first level of the study concerns the domain names that are exactly identical to the first and last name of the athletes. Domain names composed by the first and last names or approaching are also tracked.
30% of the registered domain names are owned by the players
| Player | Registered domain name | Official domain name effectively used | Parking page | Fan website | Inaccessible page | Waiting page from the registrar | Porn content | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roger Federer | 188 |
Redirect to rogerfederer.com |
25 | 26 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Maria Sharapova | 91 | 1 : mariasharapova.com | 32 | 26 | 15 | 9 | 8 | 0 |
| Serena Williams | 63 | 2 : serenawilliams.com | 25 | 15 | 7 | 3 | 9 | 2 |
| Rafael Nadal | 50 | 2 : rafaelnadal.com, rafaelnadal-shop.com | 16 | 10 | 18 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Venus Williams | 38 | 16, Redirect to venuswilliams.com | 8 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Novak Djokovic | 25 | 3, Redirect to novakdjokovic.rs | 5 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Clijster Kim | 13 | 1 : kimclijsters.be | 4 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 480 | 142 | 117 | 97 | 71 | 31 | 17 | 5 |
| % Total distribution | 30 % | 24 % | 20 % | 15 % | 6 % | 4 % | 1 % |
Swiss Roger Federer is number one with almost 190 registered domain names around his name. The vast majority of the registered domain names (62%) belong to the world-famous tennis player and redirect to the official website: rogerfederer.com. He mainly protected his “first and last names” in many cctld (country code top level domain) even the more exotic ones: .AG (Antigua and Barbuda), BZ (Belize), .CC (The Keeling Islands), .SH (St Helena)… a real world tour! The other registered domain names are owned by fans (14%, ex: rogerfederfan.info), or cybersquatters (13%, ex: roger-federer.com, rogerfederer.net). Others are inaccessible (11%, ex: rogerfederer.fr).
Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, victims of “pornsquatting”
Russian Maria Sharapova is number 2 in the online ranking. But even if she owns an official website (mariasharapova.com) and a dress collection in partnership with Cole Haan (mariesharapovabags.com, mariasharapovacollection.com), the tennis player is also victim of traffic diversion by parking pages (35%).
9% of the registered domain names associate her name with words like "naked" and "nude" offer porn content (ex: mariasharapovanude.net). “Pornsquatting” also affects the online number three seed, Serena Williams (14%) with domain names like serenawilliamass.com or serenawilliamsbooty.org.
Spanish Rafael Nadal, ranked fourth, has an official website (rafaelnadal.com) and an online shop rafaelnadal-shop.com (income goes to his foundation). Venus Williams, Serena’s sister, protects her name and brand (Eleven) more succesfullly (elevenvenuswilliams.com). The majority of her registered domain names redirect to her official website (42%). Novak Djokovic chose novakdjokivic.rs for his official website. The domain name has been registered in the Serbian Top-Level-Domain (TLD), where he comes from. Kim Clijsters (Belgian) has the same strategy with kimclijsters.be.
Facebook used more than Twitter
On Web2.0 Federer could have won a Grand Slam! He dominates Facebook with about 7 million fans. That is more than Rafael Nadal (6.5 million) and Maria Sharapova (4.5 million).
Howover, he falls behind Serena Williams on Twitter (more than 2 million followers). She is the only one to be so active on this social network. The other tennis players are far behind with a maximum of 100 000 followers for Novak jokovic. Oddly Rafael Nadal does not have an official Twitter profile but @rafaelnadalfan still manages to have about 75 076 followers.
| Player | Number of Facebook fans | Number of followers on Twitter | Official Twitter profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roger Federer | 7 349 037 | 66 317 | FedererNews |
| Rafael Nadal | 6 571 648 | Without official profile | |
| Maria Sharapova | 4 457 126 | 6 458 | SharapovaUpdate |
| Venus Williams | 803 661 | 2 096 | RealVWilliams |
| Serena Williams | 530 782 | 2 073 289 | Serenawilliams |
| Novak Djokovic | 314 400 | 110 371 | DjokerNole |
| Clijster Kim | 111 844 | 96 300 | Clijsterskim |
(*) This study was carried out during the 21st week of 2011 on Keepalert.com
