Why do Nigerians still go for the .com and other TLDs leaving off their .ng

Any good reason

Comments,

to me, the URL becomes too long to give out,
www.mywebsiste.com.ng

if it culd come this way: www.mywebsite.ng maybe it wulda been better.

also, ppl tend to stick to what they have always used. they take time to try other things,

eg. why wuld i use that when there is nothing wrong with the one am using, and its not affecting my sales or whateva in whateva way.

besides, the .ng can scare foreigners at the mere mention of the name, Ooops!!! its a nigerian site, i gotta be really careful with em.

How on earth did we get in people's black book?

@bug24
I have some issues with regards your post.

bug24:

to me,  the URL becomes too long to give out,
www.mywebsiste.com.ng

if it culd come this way: www.mywebsite.ng         maybe it wulda been better.

I don't think the simple addition of a .com.ng gives rise to any long domains. If you think so, what about .co.uk? You might be having the .tk in mind but the fact remains that the choosen extension is .com.ng so we can't help it.

bug24:

also, people tend to stick to what they have always used. they take time to try other things, 

eg. why wuld i use that when there is nothing wrong with the one am using,  and its not affecting my sales or whateva in whateva way.

What about this, "there is nothing as constant as change"? From what you pointed out, does it mean that one cannot think about affecting a change in whatever he/she has been doing? Even if it will take time, the fact remains that most people are not really thinking about them, not to try using them. I don't really know, just "thinking" anyway.

bug24:

besides,  the .ng can scare foreigners at the mere mention of the name,  Ooops!!! its a nigerian site, i gotta be really careful with em.

Do you mean to tell me that accidentally, a "mother" lost her eyes, her children should now make a mockery of her and run away from her? IMHO, the fact remains that she is a mother and no matter what, her children remains hers no matter how many years and what generation they find themselves. Why not change your identity from birth and never be a Nigerian? You can't run away from this simple fact. All you can do is to be proud of Nigeria then as her citizen, try the much you can to protect her interest and promote her. A little bit of sanitization from you will do a very big magic. Don't you think so?

bug24:

How on earth did we get in people's black book?

I think you know the right people to ask this 

I recently read an article about .co.uk. It basically says that a majority of UK citizens (can't remember the exact number as I never thought I would be using this as an example on a post here ) would never associated a .com for instance with a UK site. To them, UK sites end with .co.uk (or whatever ends with .uk). That to me, and yes you can say all you want about how "honest" they are, is all about national pride. If we adopted the same approach, all we would have is .com.ng or .ng or whatever.

I think we need to stop looking at the symptoms and tackle the disease itself. I think we need to stop looking at the fire and focus on the match that lit the fire. We need to for example stop asking why the average Nigerian street sounds like a war zone at night because each house has a gen and look at why we don't have steady light.

I also either read an article or read it here on this forum the issues of unreliability (if I am not mistaken, there was a time this year when all .ng domains were down for at least a week), the presence of only one organization acting as registrar (some white guy with attitude, based on what I read here), the fact that it takes a week to obtain a .com.ng, among others. If I am a company who needs a website now and wants to do business with the world now, why go through or risk going through the factors I just mentioned?

We need to forget about this "Nigerian image abroad". Every country has problems. Who will drive the adoption of the .ng domain? It's us developers. Sure, people are used to .com, .org and the like but let's not forget, we as Nigerians too dey like copy oyibo. Even if oyibo dey stick hand for nyash lick am, we go wan do d same thing cos we think say na status symbol. When people start seeing more and more .ng domains being advertised in the media and/or see their friends/business partners adopt the domains more and more, believe me, it will become the norm.

I see a lot of naija-based sites with logos that read, "proudly nigerian". That makes me proud. What would make me even prouder is if we start using the .ng domain more and more. To make that happen though, the process of obtaining one must be streamlined and its reliability should be bar-none.

I believe you Yawa. How I wish other developers will seriously look into this. The basic problem here is that they will see serious issues as this, rather than deliberate on it, they lie in wait for website reviews where they can make a mockery of other peoples jobs. I wonder why that should be the prior thing on their minds.

Waiting for more people with good opinions and ideology on how we can get around this. Two heads are better than one, hope you remember?

Your com.ng is still  having problem not to talk of .ng beside nigeria is gradually getting there and i think the name .com.ng sounds good to me ooo despite the fact it looks like a sub-domain but nonetheless what do you say about names like .co.za? .co.uk ? .com.gh ? gh is for ghana ooooo so c'mon o boy you ought to have appreciated that for nigeria 2 have come of age in having that domain server or you think say na beans ?  now i love nigerians who imbibe the use of our own domain my 1naira contribution.

omni,

Two *good* heads are better than one

cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooourt

I thought about a .ng domain but someone says its being monopolized by an individual and the cost is ridiculous.
Does anyone know how much its costs?

Why is it that no one really has a concrete information on how we can try resolving this issue here? Makes we wonder if we ever want to try using our nations domain name.

omni, from reading, it appears to be a monopoly issue. Until the govt or whomever is in charge allows free markets to reign, which would encourage competition, which in turn leads to better services, I am afraid that as many things naija, we will be stuck in neutral for a long time to come. Sad but true.

Not as bad!

Registration process in the past was not commercially-based (and therefore not self-supporting), and the registration was not automated and real time.

However a lot has been and is being done to address these bottlenecks. A stakeholder-based body Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NIRA) http://www.nira.org.ng/ has been set up and given the mandate to kick-start and manage .ng registrations.

NIRA has appointed Registrars and plan commencing commercial operations, in January 2009. See details in http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/compulife/article02//indexn3_html?pdate=101208&ptitle=NiRA .

Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

finek,

Call me crazy but I just loaded up the url you posted above and got nothing.  I had to google to find www.nitda.gov.ng

Be that as it may, I personally will be adopting the "sidon look" mentality, same approach I take when MSFT comes out with something in beta.  I will give them some time to iron out their kinks before I jump on board.

Sorry but I have been burned too many times to be burned yet again. Once bitten they say, twice shy.

yawa-ti-de, I assume you are refering to NIRA's URL. A colon was missing in the URL, but now included. My mistake!

"Sidon look"? Fair enough! But risky approach if you are a player in the industry.

Taking into consideration the bad name given to us by the outside world, i think it will be wise not to use such domains when dealing with foreigners, but we can always use it within the shores of Nigeria.

Na de way i see am oooooh

It took me approximately 6 days to get my .ng domain to be resolved. It is also free, if you already have a hosting company that will host your site. But you will be required to pay if you also want to host with NITDA servers.

My experience - the down-time of .ng servers is not encouraging and needs to be addressed asap.

finek:
The keyword in your last statement is, "if"

eddy4naija:
What is the difference b/w a .com website where I can click on "contact us" to see where the company is based and a company with a .ng domain website? To me, same difference. If I want to know where a company is based, it isn't that hard. People will do business with you if you have something to offer regardless, or vice versa.

yawa,

Does it necessarily mean that any company with .ng domain is based in Nigeria?

youngies,

That is another thing. Thanks for bringing it up. Just like not all .com companies are US-based, not all .ng companies could be nigeria-based. For instance, let me play devil's advocate and examine 2 extremes - it could be a company in a country like equitoreal guinea wants an African presence but they don't have a domain of their own so they shoot for a .ng domain. On the other hand, a 419 guy who happens to be indian and knowing the reputation we have with the world, establishes a website with a .ng domain.

Thanks for bringing this up once again.

Many thanks, Yawa

To break it down further, do you know that, that Indian 419 with .ng domain must be known by the authorities before his .ng domain is registered? If at anytime it proven or even suspected that his domain is involved in illegal business, NITDA has the right to shut it down without any recourse.

Again, you as an individual or comapany can't go and register for instance "www.cocacola.com.ng" if you are not the real coca cola company. If you do, at anytime it is discorvered by coca cola, they may ask NITDA that they want to reclaim the domain from you, and NITDA will have no option than to oblige them.

youngies:

Many thanks, Yawa

To break it down further, do you know that, that Indian 419 with .ng domain must be known by the authorities before his .ng domain is registered? If at anytime it proven or even suspected that his domain is involved in illegal business, NITDA has the right to shut it down without any recourse.

Again, you as an individual or comapany can't go and register for instance "www.cocacola.com.ng" if you are not the real coca cola company. If you do, at anytime it is discorvered by coca cola, they may ask NITDA that they want to reclaim the domain from you, and NITDA will have no option than to oblige them.

you are right. as a matter of fact before any new domains are released to the public every company is given the right to buy up. it is generally higher than the usual price but it is worth the agro of trying to stop fraudulent/illegal use later.

youngies:

yawa,

Does it necessarily mean that any company with .ng domain is based in Nigeria?

the white guy who was responsible for the registration 3 yrs ago told us in an email you have to have physical presence in naija.

youngies:

It took me approximately 6 days to get my .ng domain to be resolved. It is also free, if you already have a hosting company that will host your site. But you will be required to pay if you also want to host with NITDA servers.

My experience - the down-time of .ng servers is not encouraging and needs to be addressed asap.

where is the registration site pls

Interestinq Topic!
@poster i think its more special for we nigerians to use .NG rather than .COM because .NG is our pride!

For those who are in support of .COM plz kindly give us from vital reasons.

I believe the question has been answered, and extensively answered.
And that the why is more basically that of the pride it gives than any other factor (for now). See how proud Seun is calling this forum the biggest nigerian website. A .ng domain will instantly be associated with Nigeria, maybe the bad of the nation, but see it another way the good coming out of the nation.

JJYOU:

you are right. as a matter of fact before any new domains are released to the public every company is given the right to buy up. it is generally higher than the usual price but it is worth the agro of trying to stop fraudulent/illegal use later.

NITDA goes to the extent of calling your administrative contact to confirm before you could be registered

the white guy who was responsible for the registration 3 years ago told us in an email you have to have physical presence in naija.

The white boy's name is Randy Bush, he has since handed it over to Nigerians

where is the registration site please

The registration site is http://db.register.net.ng

Perfect Point Mr. Gozzila in addition to your splendid post, i mean the aspect of Seun being proud of his forum i think something like www.nairaland.com.ng or betterstill www.nairaland.ng Proudly Naija Domain but it's a shame we all pursue the .COM domain and neglect out home base Domain.

youngies:

NITDA goes to the extent of calling your administrative contact to confirm before you could be registered

The white boy's name is Randy Bush, he has since handed it over to Nigerians

The registration site is http://db.register.net.ng

how did you interprete being given rights to admin contacts being called? what i said is true i stand by that. it was done before the .eu and recently the .mobi came live. almost 3 months if i remember.

you are right that guy is randy bush and thanks for the link

ztyle

It may not be in the Seun's best interest to pursue a .ng domain for nairaland for now, because nairaland is about the busiest online naija forum. It cannot afford intermittent down-time that .ng domain is prone to.

Hopefully soon all the issues with the .ng tld will be taken care of, only then will I suggest that for Seun for a site like nairaland.

what is the security of info like with naija domain registrations. do you have to give your credit card details and what is the gaurantee it wont be compromised?

Mr.youngies
Dude i try to comprehend ur post but couldn't get ur point nevertheless u're rite he can't afford, but yet claim to have the biggest Nigerian Website with no .NG attach to it, come to think of it that dude is makinq million's from this site, u can't tell me that you're not aware of that, huh.

ztyle:

Mr.youngies
Dude i try to comprehend ur post but couldn't get ur point nevertheless u're rite he can't afford, but yet claim to have the biggest Nigerian Website with no .NG attach to it, come to think of it that dude is makinq million's from this site, u can't tell me that you're not aware of that, huh.

what is your point here sir? must everything nigerian has .ng? where is he making the millions from? please give us his house address and bank account number

JJYOU:

what is the security of info like with naija domain registrations. do you have to give your credit card details and what is the gaurantee it wont be compromised?

No, you do not have to give any account details before you could register your .ng domain. The issue of security of your credit card does not arise. Maybe you need to open the registration site and look at fields in the form for registeration, http://db.register.net.ng

Thanks

ANy web designer to help us out