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.

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.

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…

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.

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).

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

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.

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.

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.