Registration for Nigeria’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), .ng, rose to 183,195 in August this year, data released by the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has revealed . This was, however, a marginal growth as the database only grew by 6,474 between January and August.
The .ng registration database stood at 176,721 as of December 2020 according to the data released by NiRA. In the year, the database grew by 28,976, surpassing the 16,645 increase in registrations recorded in 2019.
However, going by the eight-month record of this year, interest in the country’s domain name may have waned. The country’s internet asset which is being managed by NiRA had witnessed steady growth over the last three years, even though many Nigerian websites are still registered with foreign domain names. This had prompted NiRA to set a target of one million active web addresses on the .ng domain name in five years, starting from 2019.
However, the pace of growth has slowed down over the last year, thus casting a shadow of doubt over the one million targets of NiRA. Currently, Nigeria has one of the lowest registrations for the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) in the world. Nigerians’ preference for foreign domain names, especially, the United State’s .com has been the bane of the .ng, thus denying the country huge revenue from the national resource.
To encourage more Nigerians to sign up for the .ng, NiRA had in July last year announced discounts on new registrations for three months. The .ng promotion commenced on the 24th of August 2020 and ended on the 21st of November 2020. According to NiRA’s report at the end of the year, the promo period witnessed an increase in the registration of .ng as more businesses took advantage of the offer.
Speaking on efforts to promote the .ng this year, the President of NiRA, Mr. Muhammed Rudman, said the Association would be kicking off another promo for this year on October 1. “We are looking forward to this promo starting on October 1. Set rules have been agreed upon between NiRA and its accredited registrars to ensure the registrants benefit extensively from the .ng promo.
“The non-premium second level .ng domain names would be available from participating registrars at the same offer price as during the .ng promo of the year 2020. The same price was offered in the year 2020 to interested members of the public for registering non-premium second level .ng domain names are on offer to the public this year,” Rudman said.
While advising businesses in Nigeria to take advantage of the internet to achieve better sales, the NiRA urged them to take advantage of the opportunities in the .ng namespace. “This means using the .ng domain extension for personal and business websites and online platforms. It offers tremendous benefits. Using the .ng domain name for your website provides the opportunity for businesses to reach the Nigerian market more easily. If your business is intended for the Nigerian market, using the .ng domain extension improves your local search engine optimization (SEO) and helps your audience to discover your business easily on search engines,” he said.
He added that the Association is committed and dedicated to rewarding the entrepreneurial drive of Nigerians that have been successful online and contributed to the growth of Nigeria’s economy. “The adoption of the .ng domain name is a channel to support our effort in growing the Nigerian digital economy,” he added.
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