Most visited Nigerian sites in February 2010

As usual looking at how Nigerian website feared in the recent month. It again no surprise that nairaland.com remains on the top spot but its good to note how punchng.com rally from shadow of its formal glory to take back the second spot. We predicted last month that punchng.com will battle it out between 1^st and 2^nd spot this month; yeah indeed it proved us right. While vanguardngr.com relinquished the second spot for the veteran punchng.com. thisdayonline.com is back again with a massive push  upward to stand on the fourth spot while 234next.com also ramp up 3 places to stay on the 5^th spot.

Sunnewsonline.com dropped just 1 place as gtbank.com leads the banking industry on the 7^th spot. Ngrguardiannews.com gained just a spot while nigeriagalleria.com shed the most places in the top-ten losing 6^th points. Nigerianbestforum.com remains on the 10^th spot as it as last month.

You can view the full table here for the current and historical ranking. This review covered the top fifty.

Top Ten

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

The Mover

Let’s look at the top movers for February;

• Technologytimesng.com 32
• Ican-ngr.com 26
• Sompassnews.net 22
• Independentngonline.com 20
• Smsbag.com 19
• Nigeriamasterweb.com 18

The Shakers

These sites could not keep-up with the heat, so they shed points;

• Jambutme.com 14
• Buyright.biz 9
• Jobberman.com 8
• bbnplace.com 7
• naijahotjobs.com, nigeriagalleria.com  6

The most significant shaker for month is nairalist.com

Debutants

It’s lovely to see that Nigerian web industry is active and adding many more sites daily. A total of 3 sites debuted on our ranking list. etisalat.com.ng topped the list having been able to break into the top-forty.

• Etisalat.com.ng
• Nigerianelitesforum.com
• Multilinks.com

Drop outs

These sites eventually dropped out of our top-fifty Nigerian sites;

• platgroupng.com
• arikair.com
• Bellanaija.com
• 50kobo.com
• flyaero.com
• nigerianscomplain.com
• nairalist.com

The Nigerian web industry is waking up as more startups are being launched from Nigerians at home and in Diaspora. News sites still dominate the top-ten site as more local contents are still needed to water the appetite of Nigerian internet users. I hope the events lined up for this year will help address these needs.

Note: Our ranking is based on Alexa Internet ranking system. We select Nigerian sites from the bunch to arrive at our ranking. This review is based on the top fifty Nigerian sites that we ranked.

Tweet This Post

Most Visited Nigerian Site in 2009; Analyst Report

General Recap

This report is an excerpt from our Nigerian Internet Report to be published next month. You can join the survey here for the reports to be published alongside the paper. We recently wrote an Analyst Report on Google Zeitgeist 2009 here. To view the complete ranking through 2009 you can visit our site ranking page here.

Generally, Nigerian web industry is on the rise and 2009 marked a giant leap as trends unfolded and players’ unleashed strategies to generate value from their site.

What is in this report?

We looked at the historical data of the top sites for 2009, looking at the factors that shaped the patterns. We also looked at the top sites by industry; painting a picture of browsing behaviour and wants of Nigerians. We also gave advised on the top industries and how to crack in. We discussed about the emerging industries and a possible next mover. We hope to expand this report by the time our full Nigerian Internet report is ready.

How we rank

Our ranking is based on Alexa ranking algorithm but we cache historical data to generate our reports. The cumulative ranks for each of the site over the period of 10 months is the base of the calculation that now arrived at the point base system (PSB) for this report. The sites under consideration are the ones that have featured on our ranking table for at least 3 times during the period under review. We believe this will help maintain consistency. The ranking accuracy is highly dependable as events shaping the traffic pattern reflected in the table. Also Google’s Zeitgeist was in tandem with our reports. For 2010, we have planned to integrate other mechanism for our ranking system. So stay tuned!

Download the full report here (10 Pages).

Tweet This Post

Most visited Nigerian Site for December

As usual here on our top Nigerian site, let’s take you through how they feared this December. Undoubtedly nairaland.com remains the 1 site in Nigeria. Last month witness a first time reduction in number of news websites in the top ten slot from 5 to 3. But the trend has reversed itself. The high note is that punchng.com as reverse their earlier decision to monetize their content and has allowed free content on their site.

Generally, Nigerian browsing pattern still revolves around Mail, Social Networks, Search, Forum, News, Jobs and SMS. On the global scene, Yahoo, Facebook and Google are the top sites Nigerians visit. On the local scene, forum site nairaland.com is the top site follow by two news sites and SMS. After last month’s news site drop in traffic, we witness a rebound as couple news site have wax strong even as more are dropping off. The top-ten now have five news sites.

The sites covered in this report are basically the top 50 Nigerian sites.

The Movers

Gloworld.com moved 35 places. webtrendsng.com 18 places, jobberman.com 17 places, smartbuyng.com 16 places, alireta.com 14,and  kwarapolytechnic.com 13

The Shakers

Mynaijanews.com dropped 24, nigerianbulletin.com 18, careersnigeria.com 18, thenationonlineng.net 15, and zenithbank.com dropped 13 places.

The Drop-outs

9jamovies.com

osundefender.org

unilorin.edu.ng

nigeriamasterweb.com

Tweet This Post

Happenings around the Internet for the Week

Facebook Users in Nigeria and Africa sees Growth

I last reviewed Facebook Users across (Selected) African countries in August here. Another look at the users’ increment is outlined below. Let’s first take a look at Nigeria’s Facebook Users;
Total: 901,840

Fastecash: a Nigerian e-Payment platform

As the internet users’ grow by the day in Nigeria, one of the challenges of growing the ecommerce side of it has been largely online payment solution. Interswitch is the topmost of all with their ATM cards which is usable online and issued by all Nigerian banks.

Nigerian Search Pattern; Google Zeitgeist take a look

Earlier in the week Bing release its search stats and not long Google also released its annual Zeitgeist. Google’s report is broad and includes Nigeria.

Rave of acquisition; Google acquires appJet, Apple acquires Lala

As the battle between the two companies grows, the needs to shop for creative and talented startups have seen them acquire startups here and there. Google acquired gizmo5 and adMob last month and now has acquired appJet the develop of etherPad. On the other hand Apple also acquired Lala the cloud music streaming platform that have gain wide following.

Microsoft and Yahoo seals deal

The Microsoft-Yahoo search and advertising deal, first announced back in July, has just been finalized by the two companies.

Back in October, it was revealed that details were still being mulled over because of the deal’s complexity, but this afternoon, the companies put out a statement to let the world know that the deal is now complete.

Google Gets Into The DNS Business. Here’s What That Means

Google just announced Google Public DNS, a new service that lets consumers use Google as their DNS service provider. The benefits to users are a theoretically faster and more stable browsing experience, and some additional security against malware type sites. The benefit to Google – tons more data, and some potential revenue.

Amazon and Vente-Privee in talks over 2 billion Euro acquisition, say sources

US retailing giant Amazon is in deep and secret negotiations with Vente-Privee, the French private sales club which has taken the ecommerce and fashion industries by storm, our sources say.

Twitter Debuts New Mobile Site, Eats Its Own Dogfood

If you use Twitter frequently on your smartphone, there’s a good chance you use a native Twitter client. Between apps like Tweetie on the iPhone, Twidroid on Android, and Seesmic on Blackberry, there’s no shortage of quality apps that put advanced features at your fingertips. But, according to a post that just went live on the Twitter blog, there are still plenty of people who navigate to m.twitter.com, the Twitter mobile site that’s about as spartan as they come. Tonight, Twitter is showing off a preview of the new mobile site it’s working on, housed at mobile.twitter.com. And it’s a big improvement.

Twitter, Amiando, Obopay, And Playfish Are Named Technology Pioneers By The World Economic Forum

Every year the World Economic Forum picks a couple dozen or so up-and-coming technology startups from around the world and dubs them Technology Pioneers. In the past, Technology Pioneers have included Google and Mozilla. Last year, Mint, Etsy, and Brightcove joined the club.

Digg.com clocks Five
It was exactly five years ago today that digg.com went live as a simple site where you could vote on your favorite content from around the web. (Here is our initial profile from over 4 years ago.) They’ve grown a lot since then, to over 40 million monthly visitors and 80 employees, founder Kevin Rose writes today.

SEC Files Lawsuit Against Canopy Financial And Co-Founder For Fraud

Canopy Financial, Inc. provides technology-enabled electronic payment, account management, and investment technology platforms for health savings accounts, flexible spending accounts, and health reimbursement arrangements. It recently falsified its financial statement into misleading investor to part with as much as $75 million.

Zoosk Lands Another $30 Million For Social Dating

Zoosk, the dating service with a focus on social networks, has closed a $30 million Series D funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with existing investors Canaan Partners and ATA Ventures participating as well. Bessemer’s David Cowan will be joining the Zoosk board of directors.

Meebo Gives Publishers More Control Over Meebo Bar With New API

Meebo.com once again gives users control over display of chat platform on their site.

Tweet This Post

Most visited Nigerian Sites for October

You are welcome to yet another ranking review of Nigerian site for October. We have extended our reach to cover 95 websites and we shall review the top 50 in this article. You can view the ranking table here.

Movers

Our top movers for the month is Naijaloft.com, which moved 21 places follow by Informationnigeria.org (19 places) and gtbplc.com 18 places.

Shakers

Site that dropped most places from the ranking table; 9jabook.com 12 places, independentngonline.com 8 places, and nigeriamasterweb.com 7 places. This shows that most didn’t drop too much compare to how much the movers moved.

Top ten

It is quite encouraging to see how things have changed in the last 30 days, in the top-ten last month we had 60% of the sites from the news sub-sector, but things have changed slightly this month. Gtbplc.com made the top-ten after a long spell off the circle, spending the last five months wandering up and down the table.

As usual, nairaland.com remains the no. 1 site in Nigeria but this time around followed by vanguardngr.com which replaces sunnewsonline.com that now stands on the 4^th spot. nigeriagalleria.com arrived on the top five last month and now stamping its authority by moving 2 places to the 3^rd spot, its first time ever on this spot. ngrguardiannews.com dropped a point to stand on the 5^th spot.

naijahotjobs.com failed to lift a leg from last month’s spot remaining on the 6^th spot, what’s happening to the top job hunting forum? thisdayonline.com, 234next.com both remained on the same spot they were last month, this shows steady but no increasing site hits for these two sites.

Gtbplc.com is one of our top mover for this month, climbing 18 spots to the 9^th spot as nigerianbestforum.com stands on the 10^th spot with 3 places move up the table.

Top twenty

There is no much upset from this list as most of the sites here last month also made the list excerpt for goodlife.com.ng that dropped from the top-ten to 11^th place. punchng.com continued its journey downward by dropping yet another 2 points to now stand on the 13^th spot. tribune.com.ng and nairalist.com dropped 5 places to stand on the 14^th and 19^th spots respectively as Saharareporters.com sealed the 20^th spot.

Top Thirty

Naijaecash.com is leading on the 21^st spot having gained 5 places, followed by Naijaloft.com which moved a whopping 21 places to stamp its presence on our list, currently stands on the 22 spot. Thepmnews.com retains the 30^th spot for the second time in a row as Informationnigeria.org moved 19 places to stay on the 29^th spot. Thenationonlineng.net , osundefender.org are the last newspaper websites; maintaining 25^th, 26^th and 27^th spots respectively. They seem to be the least traffic news website in Nigeria. And finally, nigeriamasterweb.com dropped 7 places to stay on 28^th spot.

Top Forty

This section has 3 debutants (internetmarketingnigeria.com, nigerianbulletin.com , smartbuyng.com) on our ranking table. It also features two Nigerian social networking sites; naijapals.com and 9jabook.com. Cscsnigerialtd.com is now at 31^st followed by arikair.com on the 32^nd. Unilorin.edu.ng (I was with the Tech guys at Unilorin earlier in the week, this is massive students registration going on, which pumped the ranking up) also made the list, standing on the 34^th spot. smartbuyng.com (36^th place) has witnessed a significant growth and displacing a top ecommerce site, buyright.biz.

Top Fifty

This list contains 2 telecoms companies’ sites, 2 banks and the central bank.  A debutant (smsdam.com 41 spot) tops the list, followed by zain.com which dropped a place. Firstbanknigeria.com, intercontinentalbankplc.com and cenbank.org maintain 43^rd, 44^th and 45^th spots respectively.

Buyright.biz has witnessed a downward trend in recent months and now stands at the 46^th spot. Etisalat.com.ng have been enjoying good reception since they started business in Nigeria in 2008, and with their recent product launch, they are surely making waves.

Nigerian sites are gaining momentum, as more sites are beginning to challenge the dominant news websites for attention more site are also being launched. This trend is expected grow bigger next year.

Tweet This Post

Most visited Nigeria Sites for September, Punchng.com finally drop off top 10

Welcome yet again to our monthly ranking table. We would be dissecting the movement and trends one after the other, but before that let me welcome you to our newly structured ranking format.

The new format allows you to see how the sites moved from the start of the year till current month. This helps you look at the trending and make sense of the ranking. You can view the current ranking and historical ranking here

The Elites Sites

Punchng.com, Nigeria’s premier newspaper finally dropped-off the top ten Nigerian sites. As usual Nairaland.com maintained the top spot having bounced back since July. While Punchng.com languishes on their model’s downside, other news sites have taken prominence ever since. Sunnewsonline.com seals it on the second spot for the second time in a row. While vanguardng.com, moved 3 places to displace ngrguardiannews.com.

Naijahotjobs.com dropped 2 places to stay at 6^th position, what is happening to Naijahotjobs.com? Well the recruitment industry has witnessed a boom with new entrant coming into the industry. Jobberman.com recently launched a job search platform and has since garnered considerable hits. 234next.com also confirmed its presence in the top 10 sites by remaining on the 8^th spot for the second month in a row. Goodlife.com.ng a debutant last month rally surprisingly to join the Elites club, with a rally of 15 places, it indeed shows sign of seriousness.

Overall, 60% or 6 of the top 10 sites are news site, while 2 forum sites and 2 portal site makes up the remaining top 10 for this month.

Nigeriamasterweb.com rally back up to the top 21, after drop by 14^th places last month. Flyaero.com dropped 6^th place from the top 10 of last month.

The Movers

Goodlife.com.ng is our top mover for the month, moving 15 places while nigeriamasterweb.com is second top mover with 14 places move. Thepmnews.com comes third, moved 4 places to stay at 30^th spot.

The Shakers

Cscsnigerialtd.com is the biggest shaker for the month dropping a whopping 26 places, followed by zain.com which dropped 19 places and odili.net which also dropped 14 places.

Worldwide

Yahoo remains the most visited website in Nigeria followed by Facebook then Google. While Blogger.com is gaining momentum, this buttress the fact that, worldwide rave of blogging is also finding its feet in Nigeria. Youtube.com and also are forces to recon with on the space. Microsoft websites (live.com and msn.com 6^th and 9^th respectively) are also not left out, though dropped so many places in recent times. Twitter.com and wordpress.com also remained solid on the hit grab from Nigeria.

Summary

News website remains the top hit grabber followed by forum and portal. Various events happening around the country contributed to the hit being generated by these sites. Whilst newly launched sites are finding their ways into the ranking table, more sites are beginning to generate considerable hits to get them on the table.

Note: this ranking is based on Alexa ranking.

Tweet This Post

Most visited Nigerian Sites for August (For September)

We are changing our strategy, in our previous ranking we usually release past month data for current month’s ranking. After much deliberation, we felt we should release data of the month under review to represent our publication title, hence the need to reflect August in the title.

The Movers
Nairaland.com once again affirmed its position as the most visited Nigerian site, having moved from 17th spot in April to current spot of 10th.  It lost the top spot in April to naijahotjobs.com then to punchng.com in May, June and later reclaimed it in July. 14th overall in July and 12th in August and now on the 10th spot. Both naijahotjobs.com and punchng.com have since lost their competitive edge at the top spot with heavy competition from their peers. Naijahotjobs.com is fighting it hard with careernigeria.com while punchng.com made what most web people called “archaic” decision to monetize is site content by way of subscription via scratch card. This has made it to continue its downward trends since July!
Nigeria saw its Apex bank (CBN) made heavy decision by sacking 5 CEO of Nigerian banks causing panic in the economy and making people jostle for information where ever they can lay their hands on it. The highest gainer is the newly launched media outfit 234next.com. I will call it a Media 2.0 firm in Nigeria with heavy usage of social media to reach diverse Nigerians with its hot news. Moving from 32nd in Nigeria and 138th overall last month, to 8th in Nigeria and 40th overall this month. Sunnewsonline.com also saw a massive move to stay at the 2nd spot this month (first time ever) by moving 10th places overall and 3 places in Nigeria, sending ngrguardiannews.com, naijahotjobs.com and vanguardng.com down the table.
Biggest movers

The Shakers
On the down side, we have total of 18 sites, even though some (tribune.com.ng, nairalist.com) moved from the overall but still failed to add a point at the home front. nigeriamasterweb.com leads the shakers on the table. The biggest causalities are independence news sites; this could possibly be attributed to the event happening around the country (CBN, Finance industry debacle) which made people seek for more authentic and reliable sources.
Biggest Shakers

The Newcomers
Zain.com has been inducted into the hall of top Nigerian sites this month with its debut on the table. 9jabook.com also featured here for the first time in recent months. Unilorin.edu.ng also enters for the first time marketing it the second school site after unilag.edu.ng to ever feature on our list. The ultimate regulator cenbank.org also made it; this is largely due to the list of the debtors (non-performing loans) of the “sick” banks on its website. A newly launched website; goodlife.com.ng also made it to the list.
Welcome backs
There are the sites that drop-off the table and now reenter the table; odili.net is the only website to rebound after spending a month in the Goners list.
Drop-off
Site that failed to make it to our list this month (though present last month): buyright.biz,
The Goners
Sites that has spent more than 2 months off the table;

• gsmhosting.com
• starcomms.com
• alljobsnigeria.com
• jamb.org.ng
• myjambexams.com
• jambonline.org

Around the World
Yahoo remains the most visited website in the Nigeria and the world at large, while Facebook has displaced Google at the second spot. People are going more social than searching these days! Also bloggers.com is on the 5th spot and youtube.com on the 7th spot (are Nigerians truly watching video online, with our current internet speed?) while Microsoft sites (live.com and msn.com) maintains the 8th and 9th spots. Wordpress.com, Twitter.com and myspace.com maintain 31st, 32nd and 33rd respectively. While myspace.com myspace.com is dropping in the ranking list, wordpress.com and twitter.com and moving up the ladder.com
Summary
Overall, more people are getting to realize the importance of free news online. 3 of the top 5 sites are news site. The CBN action also affected the traffic for this month. Given the nature of Nairaland.com (forum), it gave people opportunity to discuss the issue thereby making them come back. The biggest gainer in this remains 234next.com while punchng.com continues to trade below its peers; we hope the management will reverse their action.

Tweet This Post

Most visited Nigerian Sites for July 2009

We have extended our coverage to top 30 sites in Nigeria. This month’s ranking is encouraging given the hits these sites amass just under a month. This goes a long way to show that Nigerians on the internet are increasing, or better said; Nigerians are using the internet more.

This month witnessed a shock, seeing number 1 site (punchng.com) for last month dropping to number 7 and losing as much as 20 places in overall ranking. What could be wrong with punchng.com? Could it be that their newly launched product (Mobile Punch) as made people vacant their homepage to their mobile platform? Or people are getting angry with The Punch?

Well I will say it’s a good thing to see Nairaland.com retaking its place after about 3 months spell in the second place. With this flight by Nairaland, I will like to call your attention once again to the fact that the web has become highly participatory; away from the old push-and-pull format. Nairaland.com being a forum and contributors are open-ended; it has been able to use that to its advantage by bouncing back. People really like talking!

Dragnetnigeria.com, nigeriamasterweb.com, 234next.com and unilag.edu.ng popped into our top Nigerian site but slipped 7, 5 and 6 respectively except for unilag.edu.ng that remained unmoved.

The banking sector has been dropping since May, the trend also continued this month with gtbplc.com and zenithbank.com dropping 11 and 3 places respectively. Could it be the credit-crunch or online security?

The highest mover this month is nigeriagalleria.com moving as much as 11 places; highest in recent times. While odili.net moved 8 places. A welcome development I must say.

We have 7 new entrants; highest also in recent time (thanks to our extension to top 30); thenationonlineng.net , sturvs.com , independentngonline.com , naijapals.com, 9jafans, nigeriannews.com and buyright.biz. naijapals.com and buyright.biz are resurging on our list having dropped off couple months ago.

Tweet This Post

Most Visited Nigerian Sites for June

Tweet This Post

Most Visited Nigerian sites for the month of May

We have reviewed our ranking for the month of May and saw big surprises. Naijahotjobs.com that displaced nairaland.com last month to become Nigeria’s most visited website has lost its place to third place. Punchng.com rally over both nairaland.com and naijahotjobs.com to become Nigeria’s most visited site for this month.
Obviously, the Ekiti election have something to do with punchng.com rally to the top, we hope to see it sustain this level over the coming months. Could we say also that job hunts have reduced? I think we should ask naijahotjobs.com what’s up. It was laudable to see them at the top but we still are not happy with the sudden drop. Shedding as much as 10 places overall but only 2 amongst Nigerians’ site.
The movers and shakers
The sphere is changing, Nigerians seem to be more social than resource searching… this I guess could be said to be truth by the upsurge in the social networking usage in Nigeria. Nigerians on facebook.com has grown about 50% from January 2009 to this time. Consequently Facebook.com has displaced Google.com as the second most visited site in Nigeria overall. Nigerians are beginning to tweet, twitter has broken into the top sites in Nigeria sitting right at number 64. Keep talking Nigerian!
This month’s ranking, brought about 5 sites out of the top hundred. Namely; gsmhosting.com, nigeriannews.com, starcomms.com, alljobsnigeria.com and buyright.biz. Buyright luckily made our list last month by topping the list from behind. Having reduced its adverts on facebook.com, I guess that has began taking a toll on the visits. Jamb.org.ng also shed considerable numbers. 4 new sites joined the list (myjambexams.com, 9jafans.com, jambonline.org and naijaecash.com). Mynaijanews.com is the overall mover; moving 28 points overall and 7 amongst Nigerian sites. Odili.net shed the most overall with 16 points while jamb.org.ng shed the most amongst Nigerian sites.
Ranking table for May 2009 (base on Alexa.com engine watch out for Web Trends Nigeria SiteTrack)

How to interpret the ranking
The Overall Ranking is base on all top sites visited by Nigerians while Nigerian Ranking is the top sites developed and operated by Nigerians. The moves are based on our monthly tracking. Last month ranking was made available on our magazine Web Trends Magazine click to subscribe of view past editions.
What do you think? Drop a comment below.

Tweet This Post