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Domain Due Diligence
Report for Nairaland.com

Report Date October 6, 2025
Recommendation
Caution
Overall Summary
Suspicious
Why we think so

Quick scan summary: Nairaland is a long-running, high-traffic Nigerian discussion forum (registered 2005) with about 15.7 million monthly visits and a strong technical stack (Cloudflare CDN, HTTPS, Google analytics/GSuite). Safety signals are generally positive: no Google Safe Browsing hits and no crypto blacklist entries. The main risk is marketplace-style scams run by individual users inside forum threads — the site hosts many user reports and scam-watch threads. Verdict: ⚠️ Suspicious / Uncertain — the site itself appears legitimate, but treat peer-to-peer transactions on the forum as risky and verify counterparties.

Confidence Score
75%

Risk Insights

🛡️

High traffic, established domain

Registered in 2005 with ~15.7M monthly visits.
Major traffic from Nigeria (55%+).
Large user base makes the platform useful but also a target for scammers.
⚠️

Marketplace risk: user-to-user scams

Multiple community threads document money-loss incidents.
Moderation exists but cannot guarantee every transaction.
Avoid direct peer-to-peer payments without verification or escrow.

Contradictory Signals

Site-level legitimacy contrasts with risky user-to-user transaction behavior; treat the platform as legitimate but user deals as higher risk.

Signal A: Large, long-running community with heavy traffic (positive reputation)

Signal B: Frequent user reports of money-loss in transactions (negative trust for P2P deals)

Category Scores

Identity 70/100
Reputation 65/100
Technical 85/100
Content 55/100
Legal 80/100
Business Validity 80/100

Red Flags & Warnings

  • Repeated user reports of losing money in peer-to-peer deals arranged through forum threads (marketplace risk).
  • WHOIS uses privacy/Domain Protection Services which hides registrant contact details.
  • Limited corporate contact information scraped from the site (no clear published business support email).

🔎 Detailed Checks & Analysis

Identity (WHOIS & ownership)

Score: 70/100
Failed

"Registration date (2005) and registrar DomainSite are positive signals, yet the registrant contact is protected by Domain Protection Services, so contacting an operator directly is harder."

Reason: Domain is long-established (registered 2005) which supports legitimacy, but registrant details are privacy-redacted which reduces direct traceability.

Reputation (traffic, user reports, news)

Score: 65/100
Failed

"SimilarWeb/SimilarTech show ~15.7M monthly visits and Nigeria as the largest traffic source; user complaints and scam-watch threads are common and affect trust for financial transactions."

Reason: High traffic and many years of activity indicate a real community, but numerous forum threads document user-to-user scams in marketplace sections.

Technical signals (CDN, SSL, DNS, SPF)

Score: 85/100
Passed

"Cloudflare name servers and A records observed; SPF and MX entries present; SSL currently valid (certificate valid through late 2025), which is a strong technical posture."

Reason: Uses Cloudflare, valid HTTPS certificate, and has MX/SPF records — these reduce some technical attack surface and help email verification.

Content & moderation

Score: 55/100
Failed

"Community maintains scam-alert lists and incident threads, which shows active moderation and user self-policing, but the open-forum model still allows fraudulent listings and impersonation."

Reason: Forum content is user-generated and includes scam-report threads; moderation exists but cannot prevent every bad actor in peer-to-peer deals.

Legal / trademark checks

Score: 80/100
Passed

"Searches returned no USPTO records tied to the domain and news results do not show lawsuits naming Nairaland as a defendant in the provided dataset."

Reason: No USPTO trademark matches or reported legal actions in the provided news results, reducing immediate legal risk signals.

Blacklist & phishing

Score: 85/100
Passed

"Automated blacklist checks returned no matched threats and crypto-scam sniffer reports clean."

Reason: No flags from Google Safe Browsing and not present on the provided crypto-scam blacklist.

Business validity (operations, monetization)

Score: 80/100
Passed

"Technologies include Google Adsense/DoubleClick, Google Analytics, and G Suite for email — signs of a maintained, monetized site."

Reason: Evidence of monetization (ads), analytics and use of Google services suggests an operating business model rather than an ephemeral scam site.

Your Next Steps

  • 1
    Avoid sending money to strangers found only via Nairaland; use escrow/verified marketplaces for purchases.
  • 2
    When dealing with a seller/buyer, verify phone numbers and cross-check usernames in scam-watch threads before transacting.
  • 3
    If scammed, collect thread links, screenshots, phone numbers and report to the forum moderators and local authorities.
  • 4
    Prefer transactions with vendors that have external reputations (established e-commerce stores, traceable businesses).
  • 5
    Monitor Google Safe Browsing and similar blacklist services for changes and re-check domain reputation before sharing sensitive info.

Evidence & Citations

🕵🏻 Keep investigating

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