Web4Africa, an
accredited .ng registrar and leading web hosting company in West Africa said
as from Tuesday, 16th April 2013, it will be offering direct .ng domain
registrations for $93.75 per domain year.
Notable examples of
existing direct .ng domain names, known in the industry as 2nd-level .ng
domains, are bi.ng (registered by Microsoft), google.ng (registered by Google).
According to the M/D
of Web4Africa Ltd., Oluniyi Ajao, ".ng domains are valuable to the extent
that they lend themselves to being used for coming-up with creative domain
names considering a multitude of words in the English language end with 'ng'.
The examples are endless: si.ng, pi.ng, selli.ng, buyi.ng。"
The creative uses
also apply to other major languages, especially Chinese. In China, many names
end in 'ng' and thus, registering a .ng domain is a smart way to procure a
short domain name.
The popular social
media platform Twitter has made the use of URL shorteners bit.ly very necessary
for sharing long website addresses. Considering the 140-characters limitation,
.ng domains will open the possibility of short domain names for new URL
shorteners that are easy to remember.
Direct .ng domain
names will be available for registration for a minimum of 1 year and a maximum
of 10 years.
As is commonplace
with several domain registries, the .ng registry is reserving some direct .ng
domains they consider premium, for auction at a later date. Such premium
domains will be clearly communicated by Web4Africa on 15 April 2013 and will
not be made available for registration.
Last
week, a the Chief Operating Officer, Nigeria Internet Registration Association
(NiRA) \ Ope Odunsa conformed that the poor adoption of Nigeria’s domain
name, .ng, and the purchase of foreign domain names such as .com, .org, .net,
and .co.uk etc, by Nigeria’s website owners, has resulted in a capital flight
of about 3.76 billion naira ($23.8 million) in the last five years.
He added that
over 752.66 million naira ($4.77 million) is paid annually by Nigerians to
service the over 600,000 registered foreign domain names in the country.
In Nigeria, it costs about 5,000 naira ($31.6)
to purchase a domain name.
Web4Africa is also
one of the largest web hosting companies in West Africa.
Useful option
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