Let me take you through our traditional review here, by looking at how Nigerian websites performed in January. Nairaland.com remains the unmoved table topper as punchng.com finds its feet, moving 6 places from the bottom to the fourth place on the table. I believe punchng.com management has learnt their lesson! Vanguardng.com is the second most visited Nigerian website having stayed within the top 3 for the past 5 months. This shows a consistency in policy and service delivery. Nigeriagalleria.com keeps it locked on the 3^rd sport moving 2 places from 5^th position. Punchng.com in the 4th place after making a comeback last month. If punchng.com continuous like this, it will battle it out in the 1^st and 2^nd places this February.

Sunnewsonline.com on the 5^th place shedding 2 points, naijahotjobs.com juxtapose its position with gtbank.com as they both stand on 6^th and 7^th places respectively. It’s a big comeback for 234next.com as it moved 9 places to stay on the 8^th spot after missing out on the top-ten list last in December.

Should we say the battle is too hot for ngrguardiannews.com to fight? The last time it made the top five was in October 2009; looking at its influence in the industry and print circulation, it’s expected to do same online but continuously fails, what is happening?  It has been shedding point since September last year, now stands at number 9. Nigerianbestforum.com is also flexing its muscle, moving 3 places to finish on the 10^th spot. It made the top-ten last in October 2009.

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

The Mover

Let’s look at the top movers for January;

• osundefender.org 20 places
• mobilitynigeria.com, nairalist.com 15 places
• 9jamovies.com, olusegunajibode.com 13 places
• 234next.com 9 places
• careersnigeria.com 8 places

234next.com has the most significant move here as the move allowed it to break into the top-ten once again. Osundefender.org is also a site to watch having rallied throughout last year. Let’s see how it will perform this year.

The Shakers

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

• Naijaloft.com 22 places
• bbnplace.com, Informationnigeria.org 15 places
• naijapals.com 12 places
• smsdam.com 6 places
• bbnsms.com, goodlife.com.ng, ngcareers.com 8 places

Debutants

It’s lovely to see that Nigerian web industry is active and adding many more sites daily. A total of 7 sites debuted on our ranking list. Epaymonster.com topped the list having been able to break into the top-twenty despite its newness. Let’s see how it slugs it out with the rest. So, I will call epaymonster.com our debutant of the month.

• epaymonster.com 14
• jambutme.com 18
• smshulk.com 28
• txtoweb.com 39
• nigerianscomplain.com 40
• Bellanaija.com 49, after a long spell outside of the top-fifty, bellnaija.com was able to break in this January.
• aratext.com 50

Bounce back

Bounce back box contains sites that have made our list before but somehow, lost out and later regain thier momentum and make the list.

sturvs.com the Nigerian social bookmarking site bounced back after a protracted absent on the list. Last appeared on our ranking table in June 2009. Keeping it locked on the 36^th spot this January.

Drop outs

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

• intercontinentalbankplc.com 54,-32
• internetmarketingnigeria.com 63, 18
• kwarapolytechnic.com 69, -22
• uugobest.com 72, -24

The Nigerian web industry is very active, adding more sites daily and seeing these sites garner enough attention to making the most visited site is a big thing.

If you look at it critically, Bulk SMS sector is the most active in terms of new site and models. We will write a study of this sector soonest. It’s still very obvious that 5 in 10 Nigerians reads news online. The battle is on, are you ready for this? What’s your site address and model? Share below!