Domaining is still an unheard of business in Africa, at least South Africa. A few days ago, I suggested an idea on creating a domain aftermarket to market African ccTLD domain names. A lot of African sit on gold, that's they own great, superb domains that could bring in loads of type-in traffic but they don't have ideas on how to monetize or develop those domains.
South Africa has built a wonderful domain industry that can serve as an example to other African countries. Every week, a .co.za domain is sold on Sedo for four figure dollar values. I think Africans need to learn to trust their ccTLD and then the African ccTLD registries needs to rise to people's expectations by offering domains that are affordable and policies and regulations that are user friendly. The monopolies should be dismantled to allow for healthy competition in the industry.
It looks like Kenya might follow on South Africa and build up its fledgling domaining industry. Nigeria too looks promising but the rest of Africa is still clueless. But there are several hindrances to domaining in Africa from the prohibitive prices to the abuse and fraud experiences in some ccTLDs like Zambia's .zm where the operator Zamnet has been involved in systematic abuse, an issue that we will discuss in a future post on the blog.
For the rest of Africa, it's best to invest your efforts in the gTLD sphere, buy .com domains, they are the top of the range in the market and they are also cheap. With GoDaddy's periodic promos, you could buy domains for as low as $1 and then go ahead and break even in less than two weeks. The rest is just profits. Africa, please get domaining, don't miss out on the opportunities of the worldwide web!
If you need help starting your domaining business in Africa, please get in touch at africadomainnames@gmail.com or via Twitter @AfricaDomains
South Africa has built a wonderful domain industry that can serve as an example to other African countries. Every week, a .co.za domain is sold on Sedo for four figure dollar values. I think Africans need to learn to trust their ccTLD and then the African ccTLD registries needs to rise to people's expectations by offering domains that are affordable and policies and regulations that are user friendly. The monopolies should be dismantled to allow for healthy competition in the industry.
It looks like Kenya might follow on South Africa and build up its fledgling domaining industry. Nigeria too looks promising but the rest of Africa is still clueless. But there are several hindrances to domaining in Africa from the prohibitive prices to the abuse and fraud experiences in some ccTLDs like Zambia's .zm where the operator Zamnet has been involved in systematic abuse, an issue that we will discuss in a future post on the blog.
For the rest of Africa, it's best to invest your efforts in the gTLD sphere, buy .com domains, they are the top of the range in the market and they are also cheap. With GoDaddy's periodic promos, you could buy domains for as low as $1 and then go ahead and break even in less than two weeks. The rest is just profits. Africa, please get domaining, don't miss out on the opportunities of the worldwide web!
If you need help starting your domaining business in Africa, please get in touch at africadomainnames@gmail.com or via Twitter @AfricaDomains
