Abstract: The present study focuses on the webometric analysis of the I-League club websites of India. Analysing the websites of the Indian football clubs it has been found that in WIF calculation NFC holds the rank one position with SWIF of 0.7222, while MBAC and CBFCG hold the 2nd and 3rd positions respectively with SWIFs of 0.6973and 0.6363. According to Internal –link Web Impact Factor (IWIF) the previous three clubs hold the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ranks with IWIFs of 0.6315 (MBAC), 0.5000 (CBFCG) and 0.3888 (NFC) respectively. In case of External-link Web Impact Factor (EWIF) CCFC holds the rank one position with EWIF of 0.6000. NFC and EBFC hold the 2nd and 3rd positions with EWIFs of 0.3333 and 0.1568 respectively. The website of NFC having domain authority of 53 ranks highest while in the case of page authority, the website of AFC ranks first with page authority score of 57. Website of MPFC has the heaviest page size of 10.4 MB and website of AFC takes the maximum time of loading the webpage i.e. 12.62 seconds which is not a desirable thing. East Bengal Football Club (EBFC) holds the best global rank with 1,242,038 and it has the best Indian rank also i.e. 176,547

Sarkar, Arindam

English

UNL | Libraries

University of Nebraska - Lincoln
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Summer 5-2019
Websites of I-League Clubs: A Webometric
Analysis
Arindam Sarkar
Department of Library and Information Science, Jadavpur University, infoarindam83@gmail.com
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac
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Sarkar, Arindam, "Websites of I-League Clubs: A Webometric Analysis" (2019). Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 2965.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2965
1 
 
Websites of I-League Clubs: A Webometric Analysis 
 
Arindam Sarkar 
PhD Scholar, Department of Library and Information Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata- 
700032, India 
Email: infoarindam83@gmail.com 
ORCID 0000-0002-8728-3378 
 
 
Abstract: The present study focuses on the webometric analysis of the I-League club websites of 
India. Analysing the websites of the Indian football clubs it has been found that in WIF 
calculation NFC holds the rank one position with SWIF of 0.7222, while MBAC and CBFCG 
hold the 2nd and 3rd positions respectively with SWIFs of 0.6973and 0.6363. According to 
Internal –link Web Impact Factor (IWIF) the previous three clubs hold the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ranks 
with IWIFs of 0.6315 (MBAC), 0.5000 (CBFCG) and 0.3888 (NFC) respectively. In case of 
External-link Web Impact Factor (EWIF) CCFC holds the rank one position with EWIF of 
0.6000. NFC and EBFC hold the 2nd and 3rd positions with EWIFs of 0.3333and 
0.1568respectively. The website of NFC having domain authority of 53 ranks highest while in the 
case of page authority, the website of AFC ranks first with page authority score of 57. Website of 
MPFC has the heaviest page size of 10.4 MB and website of AFC takes the maximum time of 
loading the webpage i.e. 12.62 seconds which is not a desirable thing. East Bengal Football 
Club (EBFC) holds the best global rank with 1,242,038 and it has the best Indian rank also i.e. 
176,547. 
 
Keywords: I-League, Web impact factor, WIF, Search engine optimization, SEO, Popularity rank 
 
 
Introduction 
Indian soccer mania gets its cogent reflection in the I-League which is the men's 
top football league in India. The league is officially known as the Hero I-League due to 
sponsorship reasons. It currently sits at the top spot in the Indian national football system, 
running parallel to the newer franchise based tournament known as Indian Super League. The I-
League league is contested by 11 teams and runs from Mid-October to March with the teams 
playing 20 matches each. Starting its journey in 2007 as the successor to the National Football 
League (NFL) the league was launched as India's first ever professional football league and with 
the main objective of creating the player pool for India's national team. Players from around the 
globe can also participate in this league on behalf of any team after signing the contract for that 
respective team for a particular season or seasons.  Since the inception of the I-League, a total of 
2 
 
seven clubs have been crowned champions. Dempo have won the most titles in league history, 
being crowned champions three times. Churchill Brothers and former I-League 
side Bengaluru have won the league twice (I-League, n.d.).The teams with their web presence in 
this 21st century have gone closer to their followers. Each team’s information regarding squads, 
latest news, fixtures, points table, results, sponsors, broadcasters, statistics, messages from fans, 
gallery, social network connectivity and the like are available over the Internet through their 
websites. In this web dominated era these websites have become their main window of 
communication to the larger fan community existing all over the country as well as abroad. 
Therefore, to judge the merit of a website is highly important and webometric study is the 
probable way out. With the aim of judging the merits of the websites of the I-League teams the 
present webometric study has been undertaken. 
 
Literature Review 
Sarkar, Pal and Kar (2018) in their study had emphasized on the government tourism websites in 
India. They examined global SEO ranking with various scores and popularity ranking of the 
tourism websites in India. Traffic score, speed score, page size and load time of the websites had 
been reflected in the study to reveal the quality of the websites. For visualizing the network 
topology of the websites, SocSciBot4 web crawler and Pajek software had been used. 
Onyancha’s (2007) study investigated “the web presence and performance of academic libraries 
drawn from six countries in eastern and southern Africa (i.e. three each from eastern and 
southern Africa). Using link and content analyses, the study evaluated the libraries’ websites in 
order to: examine the location of the libraries’ websites in the university website; measure each 
library’s link performance in terms of web page, directory, domain and site out-links and in-
links; examine each library’s performance in terms of the provision of essential online services 
(e.g. web-catalogues, web forms, web search engines,etc.); map the libraries’ inter-linkages with 
each other; and to find out the most targeted web-sites/pages.” Jhamb and Ruhela (2017) in their 
study had focused on webometrically analysis (mainly the web link structure analysis which 
analyses the domain and page authority, internal links, external links, link equities, established 
links, and three types of web impact factors namely simple, internal and external) of the websites 
of seven public libraries administered by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The 
website of Central Secretariat library is having the highest simple as well as external web impact 
factor (115.8) and hence the best web presence among all. Seeing the knowledge gap in the 
webometric analysis of Indian sports websites this present study has been conducted. 
 
Objectives 
            The present study deals with the following objectives:  
o To calculate three types of web impact factors (Simple WIF, Internal link WIF, External 
link WIF).  
o To rank the club websites on the basis of these three types of web impact factors.  
3 
 
o To exhibit the domain extension percentage of the websites. 
o To calculate the domain authority and page authority of the websites.  
o To represent the page size and load time of the websites.  
o To calculate the SEO Score and Speed Score of the websites 
o To find out the Indian and global popularity ranking of the websites. 
 
 
Methodology 
An observation method has been used to conduct this research. Data have been collected from 
the websites of the 11 selected Football Clubs (who participated in  I-League, 2018-19) in India. 
Data have been collected during 25 to 27 May, 2019.  For calculating three types of WIFs 
(simple, self-link and external link WIF) first the number of links has been counted from a link 
analyser tool named CleverStat (http://cleverstat.com/link-analyzer).For calculating the number 
of webpages of a particular website “site:domain name” syntax has been used (Sarkar and Pal, 
2018). On the basis of these the formula of calculating WIF as introduced by Ingwersen (1998) 
i.e. the ratio of the number of links to a site, to the number of webpages at the site, has been used. 
This can be stated thus: 
 
 
A = Total number of webpages to a particular site 
B = Total Number of Inlinks to a given site 
C = Total Number of External links to a given site 
D = Total number of links (External + Internal) to a site 
 
Therefore, WIF (Simple) = D/A; WIF (Internal) = B/A, and WIF (External) = C/A. 
 
In this study online SEO report generation tool, Neil Patel’s SEO Analyzer 
(https://neilpatel.com/seo-analyzer/) has also been used to analyse and compare India’s Football 
Club websites on various parameters like backlinks, page size, load time, SEO score and speed 
score. SEOREVIEWTOOLS.com (https://www.seoreviewtools.com/seo-checker/) has been used 
for finding Domain and Page Authority of the websites. For finding out the Indian and global 
popularity ranking of the selected websites Alexa (https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo) tool has been 
used. 
 
 
 
 
4 
 
Scope of the Study 
The websites of 10 Football Clubs in India have been considered for this webometric analysis. 
The table 1 represents the brief details of those football clubs with their websites’ domain 
extensions. 
 
 
Table 1: List of Selected Indian Football Club Websites 
SL 
No 
Name of Football 
Club 
URL Abbvr. State Year of 
Establishment 
Domain 
Extn. 
1 AizawlFootball 
Club 
http://aizawlfc.com/ AFC Mizoram 1984 .com 
2 Chennai City 
Football Club 
http://chennaicityfc.c
om/ 
CCFC Tamil-Nadu 1946 .com 
3 Churchill Brothers 
Football Club Goa 
http://churchillbroth
ersfcgoa.in/ 
CBFCG Goa 1988 
 
.in 
4 East Bengal 
Football Club 
https://www.eastben
galfootballclub.com/ 
EBFC West 
Bengal 
1920 .com 
5 Gokulam Kerala 
Football Club 
http://gokulamkerala
fc.com/ 
GKFC Kerala 2017 .com 
6 Minerva Punjab 
Football Club 
http://minervapunjab
fc.com/ 
MPFC Haryana 2005 .com 
7 Mohun Bagan 
Athletic Club 
https://themohunbag
anac.com/ 
MBAC West 
Bengal 
1889 .com 
8 NEROCA 
Football Club 
http://nerocaimphalf
c.com/ 
NFC Manipur 1965 .com 
9 Real Kashmir 
Football Club 
https://www.realkas
hmirfc.com/ 
RKFC Jammu and 
Kashmir 
2016 .com 
10 ShillongLajong 
Football Club 
http://www.shillongl
ajong.com/ 
SLFC Meghalaya 1983 .com 
 
 
 
Data Analysis and Findings 
 
 
✓ Calculation of Web Impact Factors (WIF) 
 
Table 2 illustrates three types of WIF distribution of the selected Indian Football Club websites 
with their webpage and link details. 
 
 
5 
 
Table 2: WIFs of Selected Indian Football Club Websites 
Name 
of the 
Football 
Clubs 
Number of Web Pages and Links 3 Types of Web Impact Factors 
Total No. 
of 
Webpage 
(A) 
 
Total 
No. of 
Inlinks 
(B) 
Total 
No. of 
External 
Links 
(C) 
Total 
No. of 
Links 
(D) 
Simple 
WIF 
(D/A) 
 
Internal -
link 
WIF 
(B/A) 
 
External 
-link 
WIF 
(C/A) 
AFC 506 103 13 116 0.2292 0.2035 0.0256 
CCFC 5 0 3 3 0.6000 0 0.6000 
CBFCG 22 11 3 14 0.6363 0.5000 0.1363 
EBFC 204 23 32 55 0.2696 0.1127 0.1568 
GKFC 325 51 7 58 0.1784 0.1569 0.0215 
MPFC 1230 19 4 23 0.0186 0.0154 0.0032 
MBAC 76 48 5 53 0.6973 0.6315 0.0657 
NFC 18 7 6 13 0.7222 0.3888 0.3333 
RKFC 124 45 8 53 0.4274 0.3629 0.0645 
SLFC 2420 24 4 28 0.0115 0.0099 0.0016 
 
 
Table 2 clearly denotes that according to the Simple Web Impact Factor (SWIF) ranking NFC 
holds the rank one position with SWIF of 0.7222, while MBAC and CBFCG hold the 2nd and 3rd 
positions respectively with SWIFs of 0.6973and 0.6363. According to Internal –link Web Impact  
Factor (IWIF) the previous three clubs hold the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ranks with IWIFs of 0.6315 
(MBAC), 0.5000 (CBFCG) and 0.3888 (NFC) respectively. In case of External-link Web Impact 
Factor (EWIF) CCFC holds the rank one position with EWIF of 0.6000. NFC and EBFC hold the 
2nd and 3rd positions with EWIFs of 0.3333and 0.1568respectively. 
 
 
✓ Distribution of Domain Name Extensions  
 
Domain name is a very important issue for any website. A domain suffix or ‘top-level domain 
(TLD) is intended to define the type of website and it impacts on webpage visibility and SEO 
score. From the above table (Table-1) and the following figure (Figure-1) it can be concluded 
that except one (1) website i.e. Churchill Brothers Football Club Goa remaining other websites 
have .com domain extension. So, .com percentage is 90.91% and .in percentage is 9.09%. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
6 
 
90.91%
9.09%
Distribution of Domain
.com
.in
AFC CCFC CBFCG EBFC GKFC MPFC MBAC NFC RKFC SLFC
Domain Authority 51 33 36 32 26 31 34 53 26 37
Page Authority 57 42 43 42 35 47 49 33 31 41
51
33 36 32
26
31 34
53
26
37
57
42 43 42
35
47 49
33 31
41
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 1: Distribution of Domain Extensions 
 
 
✓ Domain and Page Authority 
 
Page Authority (PA) is a score that predicts how well a specific page will rank on search engine 
result pages (SERP). Page Authority scores range from 1 to 100, with higher scores 
corresponding to a greater ability to rank.  Whereas Page Authority measures the predictive 
ranking strength of a single page, Domain Authority measures the strength of entire domains or 
subdomains (Page authority, n.d.). Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score that 
predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain 
Authority score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to 
rank (Domain authority, n.d.). These were developed by Moz, a software as a service (SaaS) 
company based in USA.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure-2: Distribution of Domain and Page Authority 
7 
 
It is seen from the figure 2 that the website of NFC having domain authority of 53 ranks highest 
while that of GKFC and RKFC ranks jointly lowest by obtaining 26 out of a total of 100 points. 
In the case of page authority, the website of AFC ranks first with page authority score of 57 
followed by the MBAC having score of 49. Again the least score (31) is obtained by the RKFC 
in page authority. 
 
 
✓ Results from SEO Analyzer 
 
Table 3 depicts page size and load time of the Indian Football club websites. In the figure 3 the 
Speed Score and SEO Score of the websites have been depicted. Website of MPFC has the 
heaviest page size of 10.4 MB and website of AFC takes the maximum time of loading the 
webpage i.e. 12.62 seconds which is not a desirable thing. From the SEO score it has been found 
that CCFC has the highest SEO score i.e. 92 and AFC has maximum speed score of 78 among all 
the other teams. 
 
 
 
Table 3: Page Size, Load Time and Back Links of the Websites   
Football Club Page Size Load Time 
AFC 1.5 MB 12.62 Sec 
CCFC 551.8 KB 2.42 Sec 
CBFCG 3.1 MB 6.17 Sec 
EBFC 1.4 MB 2.63 Sec 
GKFC 5.8 MB 6.04 Sec 
MPFC 10.4 MB 4.65Sec 
MBAC 6.0 MB 11.88 Sec 
NFC 5.8 MB 3.42 Sec 
RKFC 3.6 MB 9.83 Sec 
SLFC 3.0 MB 2.79 Sec 
 
 
8 
 
 
Figure-3: SEO Analysis Scores 
 
✓ Popularity Rank of Websites 
 
Website popularity ranking is another important indicator which helps to better promotion of a 
website. Ranking of a website is based on a combined measure of page views and unique site 
users. Popularity ranking of selected Indian Football club websites is portrayed through table 4.   
 
Table 4: Popularity Ranking of the Websites  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
0
20
40
60
80
100
AFC
CCFC
CBFCG
EBFC
GKFC
MPFC
MBAC
NFC
RKFC
SLFC
SEO Score
Speed
Score
Football club Global Rank Ranking in India 
AFC 17,852,163 --- 
CCFC 7,376,434 --- 
CBFCG 10,450,490 --- 
EBFC 1,242,038 176,547 
GKFC 6,489,410 --- 
MPFC 5,845,806 --- 
MBAC 2,238,857 205,879 
NFC 17,631,186 --- 
RKFC 17,168,916 --- 
SLFC 8,010,538 --- 
9 
 
 
The above table clearly points out that among the websites EBFC i.e. East Bengal Football Club 
holds the best global rank with 1,242,038 and it has the best Indian rank also i.e. 176,547. This 
Football Club is followed by MBAC i.e. Mohun Bagan Athletic Club in the global ranking i.e. 
2,238,857. MBAC holds the 2ndbest Indian rank i.e. 205,879. It can be said that the two oldest 
clubs of Kolkata, West Bengal with largest fan followers are really very popular in India as well 
as other parts of the world than other football clubs of India. Alexa does not provide Indian 
ranking of many other sites. 
 
 
 
 
Conclusion 
 
Analysing the websites of the Indian football clubs it has been found that in WIF calculation 
NFC holds the rank one position with SWIF of 0.7222, while MBAC and CBFCG hold the 2nd 
and 3rd positions respectively with SWIFs of 0.6973and 0.6363. According to Internal –link Web 
Impact  Factor (IWIF) the previous three clubs hold the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ranks with IWIFs of 
0.6315 (MBAC), 0.5000 (CBFCG) and 0.3888 (NFC) respectively. In case of External-link Web 
Impact Factor (EWIF) CCFC holds the rank one position with EWIF of 0.6000. NFC and EBFC 
hold the 2nd and 3rd positions with EWIFs of 0.3333and 0.1568respectively. The website of NFC 
having domain authority of 53 ranks highest while in the case of page authority, the website of 
AFC ranks first with page authority score of 57. Website of MPFC has the heaviest page size of 
10.4 MB and website of AFC takes the maximum time of loading the webpage i.e. 12.62 seconds 
which is not a desirable thing. East Bengal Football Club (EBFC) holds the best global rank with 
1,242,038 and it has the best Indian rank also i.e. 176,547. 
 
 
References 
 
 
Domain authority. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2019 from https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-
authority.  
 
I-League. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved May 22, 2019 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-
League. 
 
Ingwersen, P. (1998). The calculation of web impact factors. Journal of Documentation, 54 (2), 
236-43.   
10 
 
Jhamb, G., & Ruhela, A. (2017).  A webometric study of the websites of public libraries. 
International Journal of Library and Information Studies, 7 (4), 83-89. Retrieved May 22, 2019 
from http://ijlis.org/img/2017_Vol_7_Issue_4/83-89.pdf. 
 
Page authority. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2019 from https://moz.com/learn/seo/pageauthority. 
 
 Sarkar, A, & Pal, A. (2018). Websites of Indian banks: A webometric study. Library Philosophy 
and Practice (e-journal), 2209, 1-18. Retrieved May 15, 2019 from 
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2209.  
 
Sarkar, A., Pal, A., and Kar, S. (2018).Webometric mapping of tourism sites in India. Library 
Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 1957. Retrieved May 16, 2019 from 
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1957 
 
Onyancha, O. B. (2007). A webometric study of selected academic libraries in eastern and 
southern Africa using a link analysis approach. South African Journal of Libraries and 
Information Science, 73(1).  25-39. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Websites of I-League Clubs: A Webometric Analysis

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Websites of I-League Clubs: A Webometric Analysis

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