234next.com, closed its print business but its online business is still relevant, thanks to its coverage of the 2011 elections. It continued to see drop after shutting down offline business but still managed to finish 6^th in 2011. Thnationaonlineng.net saw the biggest move in the top-ten moving from 16^th in 2010 to 7^th in 2011,that is massive! Saharareporters.com also made it to the top-ten moving from 11^th in 2010. Forum generally is seeing drop in ranking, no wonder nigerianbestforum.com is gradually fading out. The once dearling naijahotjobs.com has drop out of the list. Nigerianbestforum.com dropped from 7^th to 9^th and tribune.com.ng finished the list on the 10^th spot.

Honourable Mentions

Top Site in 2010

The table below shows leading Nigerian sites in 2010, the table is disrupted a bit in 2011. Expect more in 2011.

I expect to see more disruption going forward, but the big question is, how long will it take for real start-ups to displace the news sites on the list?

Nigerian internet sphere moved quite well as many people continue to spend more time online and using various local and foreign sites. Vanguardngr.com sealed its place at top having stayed up since July 2011 and ending the year as Most visited Nigerian site. Nairaland.com finished second while vconnect.com leapfrogs 2 places to finished third. Gtbank’s e-banking service is not dropping as it continued to see massive growth. Jobberman.com seems to have won the battle for number one in the job category having been the top job site for some months now.

One important thing to note is that the number of news site has dropped significantly. This is true to the estimate I made in 2010 that news sites will be losing their grip on the leading sites as new web services emerge. In December 2010, 5 news sites were in top ten while 9 were in top twenty. December 2011 saw just one drop in those numbers; 4 in top ten and eight in top twenty. This number will further drop in 2012 as new interesting start-ups are launched.

Top Ten

1                     vanguardngr.com

2                     nairaland.com

3                     vconnect.com

4                     gtbank.com

5                     jobberman.com

6                     punchng.com

7                     lindaikeji.blogspot.com

8                     dealfish.com.ng

9                     Saharareporters.com

10                 sunnewsonline.com

Top Movers

• waecdirect.org  +77
• lagoshost.com  +69
• cp-africa.com  +25
• omg.com.ng +17
• naijaloaded.com +17

The Shakers

• Mocality.com.ng -12
• arikair.com -11
• naijahotjobs.com -12
• flyaero.com  -10
• notjustok.com -8

Drop Outs

• nigeriamasterweb.com                 -14
• quickteller.com -8
• 9jabook.com      -17
• myairnigeria.com             -14
• gnbo.com.ng     -22
• zenithbank.com               -17
• bbnplace.com  -21

Trends

Major internet brands are not letting go of their leadership even as emerging platforms are popping up daily. Going into 2012, more investments will be made online and as such, the battle for the top spots will be very fierce.

To view December’s ranking, please click here.

Only one news site is in the top-five and just 4 in the top-ten. This time last year it was 5 news sites that made the top-ten. If not for the last routing of thisdaylive.com, it would have been just 3 news sites like October.

Top Mover

1. bbnplace.com +95
2. jetheights.com +37
3. omg.com.ng +30
4. techloy.com +35
5. dailytrust.com.ng +27

Top Shakers

1. dragnetnigeria.com  -26
2. Informationnigeria.org -14
3. Mocality.com.ng -11
4. naijahotjobs.com -10
5. nigeriamasterweb.com -5

Trends

Major internet brands are not letting go of their leadership even as emerging platforms are popping up daily. Going into 2012, more investments will be made online and as such, the battle for the top spots will be very fierce.

To view November’s ranking, please click here.

It’s another interesting time on the Nigerian web space as a lot continue to happen in the ecosystem, internet brands have taken their businesses serious    s and as such, they continue to rank higher month on month. Vanguardngr.com has cemented its place as number one Nigerian site as nairaland.com remains in d second spot. Gtbank.com moved up one spot to dislodge vconnect.com on the 3^rd spot. Vconnect.com now stands on the 4^th spot and jobbernman.com finally made the top-five Nigerian site spot as I predicted last month.

Sunnnewsonline.com, dealfish.com.ng moved 2, 3 respectively as punchng.com drop 3 places. Punchng.com has continued dropping since the start of the year having lost the second spot to vanguardngr.com in January; it has never being able to regain the spot except in March. Currently on the 8^th spot, the battle seems to be over for the site. Saharareporters.com and lindaikeji.blogspot.com made up the last 2 on the top-ten Nigerian sites.

Top Mover

1. nigerianseminarsandtrainings.com  +43
2. dragnetnigeria.com   +42
3. etisalat.com.ng   +30
4. sturvs.com   +15
5. Mocality.com.ng  +14

Top Shakers

1. unilag.edu.ng -19
2. myschoolcomm.com   -17
3. jamb.org.ng  -11
4. smslive247.com  -9
5. mtnonline.com  -9

Debutants

• Eskimi.com
• gnbo.com.ng
• youwin.com.ng

Trends

We have seen a continuous spending on online advertising by leading start-ups to drive popularity of their website. That is paying awesomely well for them! The battle is now how much war chest do you have to get people to visit your site and come back again. That will be the determinant of who stays put on the top spots. Kalahari.com.ng, a part of MIH sites in Nigeria that recently closed shop, we really can’t tell if their inability to justify the return on their advertising investment is the cause for the closure. If that decision is anything to go by, if other sites; dealfish.com.ng, mocality.com.ng and vconnect.com are unable to turn profit soon, they could be shut down! Jobbernman.com as continued its massive push for visitor-retention, with huge presence on Google and Facebook, it is really taking the top spot seriously!

YouWin, federal government initiative to promote entrepreneur is also seeing good patronage from Nigerian internet users. On the other hand, university websites’ traffic have been dropping massively as the exam fever subsides.

To view October’s ranking, please click here.

It’s a new month again, another time for us to check out how Nigerian sites performed last month. At the top of the rank is vanguardngr.com keeping in it strong on the number one spot for 3^rd consecutive month as nairaland.com still find it a tough task to take on. As expected, there is nothing much in the top five spot as the sites in the rank only reshuffle moving up and down within the top five. Vconnect.com is not resting on its laurels having cracked into the top five spot for the first time last month. Gtbank.com gained a point and moves from the 5^th spot to 4^th. Vconnnect.com is now the third most visited Nigerian site. Punchng.com as top contender with nairaland.com for so many year can only settle for the 5^th place.

We predict that, by the end of the month, jobberman.com will enter the top 5 spot given its impressive moves since the start of the year and also as 234next.com continues to battle to exist as a business. The company recently published its last print edition and revealed that doing media business is a tough one in the country.

Lindaikeji.blogspot.com entered the top-ten for the first time in its history, driven majorly by the rape issue she blogged about last month. The blog post has stir a revolution in the country against women abuse. It has also got the National Assembly to set-up a committee to review the rabe issue that happened in Abia State University (ABSU). Dealfish.com.ng drops two places to finish on the 10^th spot.

Top Movers

1. uniport.edu.ng +88
2. myjobmag.com +48
3. swiftng.com +25
4. tradestable.com.ng +20
5. flyaero.com +18

Top Shakers

1. jamb.org.ng -22
2. waecdirect.org -15
3. naijajobslink.com  -13
4. jetheights.com -13
5. yabatech.edu.ng -10

If the trends happening globally since the start of the year is anything to go by, movements online will continue to have major impact offline. With the Arab spring, Occupy Wall Street and Linda’s ABSU Rape exposé, we should expect more of “from online to offline” discussion going forward.

On the internet sphere in Nigeria, unlike 2010 and 2009 where news websites dominated top Nigerian sites with most eyeballs, this year will end with an impressive showing from other internet service companies. Sites like; jobberman.com, dealfish.com.ng, vconnect.com will end the year on an impressive note.

To view September’s ranking, please click here.

Let me take you through the journey to explore how Nigerian web space has feared in past month. Vanguardngr.com is now sitting comfortably on the number one spot as nairaland.com trails for the second consecutive month. Vconnect.com, the newly launched business directory moved up 3 places to make the top-five on the fourth spot just one above gtbank.com.

Jobberman.com also had an interesting month, moving a whopping sixteen places to make the top-ten for the first time ever, now on the 7^th spot. Dealfish.com.ng on the other hand seems to be stabilizing, gaining just one spot last month.

Gradually, news sites are losing their hold on the Nigeria internet users as the top five only consist of  two news site and just four in the top-ten. In recent times, it used to be at least three news sites in the top five and about 6-7 in top-ten. As exams season reigns in the country, WAEC and JAMB sites have been seeing consistent growth in the last couple of months as student troop online to check their results.

Top Movers

1. unilag.edu.ng +34
2. waecdirect.org +28
3. zenithbank.com +20
4. jobberman.com +16
5. Ui.edu.ng +14

Top Shakers

1. businessdayonline.com -13
2. smslive247.com -12
3. nigeriagalleria.com -6
4. ngrguardiannews.com -6
5. unilorin.edu.ng -5

As we countdown to end of the year, we expect entertainment sites to take the centre stage as MTN, Etisalat and Gulder  are coming up with their talent hunt shows.

On the other hand, sites that are not news related are beginning to hold their stands on the top-ten list, this is showing that Nigerian internet users are gradually shifting away from news consumption to other activities online.

As usual, the review will cover top-50 most visited Nigerian site. While we have about 140 sites ranked this month, we shall focus on the top-50. It was big news last month has nairaland.com once again lost the number one spot to ever growing vanguardngr.com. I will say, vanguardngr.com is the top Nigerian company with a well-coordinated web strategy having being able to go to users where they are, serve them content the best way they consume and being consistent for months. vanguardngr.com first clinched second spot in January 2011 then stayed on for the following 6 months before finally overtaking nairaland.com this July.

Punchng.com, 234next.com, gtbank.com and sunnewsonline.com all retained their 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th respectively as vconnect.com moved up a whopping 11 places to enter the top-ten caucus on the 7^th spot. Dealfish.com.ng has cemented its place on the 9^th spot having reached the spot for the first time last month.

You can view the complete ranking here.

The Movers

• myschoolcomm.com 93
• unilorin.edu.ng 40
• waecdirect.org 32
• wakanow.com 20
• gnaija.net 19

The Shakers

• latestnigerianjobs.com -21
• pmnewsnigeria.com -13
• Web4africa.net -8
• ngcareers.com -6
• jobrapido.com.ng -6

Debutants

• myschoolcomm.com 29^th
•  Thenetng.com 43^rd
• wakanow.com 47^th

Bounce Backs

A look at the sites that has once being in the top 50 but dropped and now re-entering.

• gnaija.net
• unilorin.edu.ng
• waecdirect.org

Drop Outs

• searchnigeria.net -39
• guruslodge.com -39
• nigeriabestjobs.com       -30
• mobility.com.ng -30
• zenithbank.com -19

Throughout the month of July, discussions were centred around Big Brother Amplified where a Nigerian, Karen Igho participated and won the competition. It was a milestone giving that another Nigerian also won last year. It is clear that Nigerian internet population and technology adoption helped her win the prize. Nigerian technology space is also buzzing up as Mobile Monday Nigeria held its monthly meeting which was tagged “Pitch Monday”. The event gave opportunity to tech start-ups to pitch investors present for a possible investment in their companies.

Generally, we discovered that there are no much shake ups in the top sites in the country this means that for every sites that made it to the list, they have been consistent and possibly serving their visitors and growing. I expect to see much more happen in the month of August as we count down to ending the year.

Nairaland until last month has been Nigeria’s most visited site for the past 5years, thanks to its spam-free nature and local relevance. Though it lost the place to vanguardngr.com  last month, it’s still a site to beat.

Loy, wrote an interesting piece about MIH offer to buy stake in Nairalist and acquire Nairaland.com  offering about $1Million. According to him, the deal didn’t work out! Was $1million too small for Nairaland? Considering the fact that it makes about $10,000 monthly through adsense.

Is it really worth it?

Last year, I wrote an analysis of Nigeria’s top internet properties and their worths. It totalled about .6billion Naira for the top 20. In the piece, Nairaland was estimated at N126, 281, 970 (About $850k at the time). It is has grown since then though.

What does it worth?

According to our estimate, Nairaland.com will be well priced at $1.5Million taking its revenue, business model, ranking and goodwill into account. With the little I know about startup valuation, these metrics (above sentiments) are very key in determining worth of start-ups. Forget normal P/E ratio for traditional businesses (eventhough they also counts), they are not VERY relevant in high-growth tech startup.

With Market value worth $1.5million, an offer of between $1.5 – $2.5Million will be a good deal and anything above that is making it overpriced. Do you think Microsoft is silly to have paid $8.5Billion for Skype? No ,no, no! They bought the future! So, to be able to convince Seun with is person and passion, you’ll need more than $1million.

What is at stake here?

Key things:

• Most visited Nigerian site
• 730,372 Members
• Personal data, interests of the members (This is goldmine if better analysed)
• Goodwill
• A possible Social Network Juggernaut
• Nigerian internet market leadership (For now, no clear leader, and buying Nairaland will be a good step to reaching that)

These things are very important for success of any start that wants to lead the way in the country.

Some thoughts

I really think anything from $1.5million is a good deal but much is at stake here just as Jerry Yang refused to sell Yahoo to Microsoft for $40billion. It’s not just the money but sometimes it pays to walk away with some money and start something else if you have one. But like others said, if you don’t have another stuffs, you might want to stick to the current cash-cow.

If you were Seun, would you have taken the money?

I have asked a couple of others about taking the money if they were offered, well as expected, some said they would while others said it depends on the circumstance etc. So, what will you do?

 Update: Seun has confirmed that the right figure is N2.4million for 60%

The top ten list only has one casualty (nigeriagalleria.com) which dropped from 10^th spot to 16^th while others reshuffled their ranking within the top ten. The top ten is evenly split between news sites and other with 50% of the top ten being news related sites and others are; forum, jobs, bank and government site.

Nnpcgroup.com just reached it’s all time high, 8^th spot! Nairaland.com sits tight on the number one spot with its other contemporaries; punchng.com, vanguardngr.com, gtbank.com and sunnewsonline.com in the top five in that order.

With the holiday season on, taafo.com had an impressive moment as users trooped to the site to get discounted goods during the Christmas. Our biggest mover for the month is jamb.org.ng ; moving a whopping 79 places. The university matriculation examination season is on, the reason for the spike in traffic of the site. Web4africa.net also followed suite with a staggering 50 places move thanks to it’s acquisition of nairahost.com.

View full ranking for December 2010 month’s table here.

Top Ten

1         nairaland.com

2         punchng.com

3         vanguardngr.com

4         gtbank.com

5         sunnewsonline.com

6         nigerianbestforum.com

7         234next.com

8         nnpcgroup.com

9         naijahotjobs.com

10     tribune.com.ng

The Movers

• jamb.org.ng       +79
• Web4africa.net  +50
• gblcareers.com  +35
• nigeriang.com  +29
• Taafoo.com        +23

The Shakers

• huhuonline.com               -23
• 9jabook.com                      -19
• Informationnigeria.org  -12
• zenithbank.com               -11
• hotnigerianjobs.com      -10

Debutants; Fast rising

• joblistnigeria.com

Trends

Earlier in the month Web4Africa.net, one of Africa’s leading web hosting company acquired nairahost.com in an undisclosed amount. Pointing to a possible Merger and Acquisition spike to expect in year 2011. Social Innovation Camp Nigeria also announced prizes for the upcoming competition while it also shortlist 6 ideas for the coding competition. December went down a memorable day as a Nigerian teenager based in Canada launched a startup, Booknote.com.

The industry looks poised for next year’s big happenings; events are lined up starting with Barcamp Kaduna, Mobile Web West Africa, Barcamp Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. The industry also went agog as the first .ng ccTLD (thisday.ng) was registered and schedule for launch this January 2011.

We will make available, State of the Nigerian Web on the 13^th of this month; covering most visited sites for the year, economically viable Nigerian startups, Lifestyle of Nigerians online and a host of other stuffs we have been working on. Stay tuned!

While most people still consume news contents, couple of jobs sites gained significant traction. Naijahotjobs.com cemented  it stand on the top ten and nothing less than 8 jobs sites made our top fifty in September.  Exam and academic activities also saw good moves with Neco exam being the top search amongst others.

All in all, nairaland.com remains the indisputable number one and showing growing power having displaced Wikipedia to break the jinx of remaining in the top 9 (of all sites visited by Nigerians Yahoo, Facebook and Google included). It now stands at 8^th most visited site in Nigeria, behind windows live.

Gtbank.com and sunnewsonline.com dropped 3 places but still in the top ten, as saharareporter.com entered the elite sites, nigeriagalleria.com also came back to lock it down on the tenth spot.

View this month’s table here.

Top Ten

1. nairaland.com
2. punchng.com
3. nigerianbestforum.com
4. naijahotjobs.com
5. 234next.com
6. vanguardngr.com
7. gtbank.com
8. sunnewsonline.com
9. nigeriagalleria.com
10. 10. Saharareporters.com

The Movers

• kwarapolytechnic.com +57
• goodlife.com.ng +49
• kalahari.com.ng +46
• Bellanaija.com +34
• flyaero.com +21

The Shakers

• compassnews.net -18
• nigeriang.com -12
• multilinks.com -11
• unilag.edu.ng -11
• smslive247.com -5

Debutants

• dragnetnigeria.com
• enownow.com

Rebounds

• goodlife.com.ng

Trends

The political scene is heating up; top Nigerian politicians are beginning to engage Nigerians via the internet by opening social media accounts. Leading the pack is President Jonathan followed by Fashola, Lagos state Governor. The world focused on Nigeria during the anniversary day as CNN and BBC engaged Nigerian bloggers and activist online.

Social media is beginning to set the pace of impact of the internet, given its ability to cause social and impactful change in the country. The president’s declaration on Facebook to contest the 2011 election is a case so significant that it made headline in local and international media.

We expect more spending from the politicians in the coming months and more user participation in the affairs of the country. A tech meetup has also been scheduled to take place with top Nigeria technology people willing to brainstorm on how to better use technology/internet to help the country conduct a free and fair election.

This is just the beginning…