SA's footprint on the internet has been acknowledged by the world's most popular internet search engine, Google, but online shoppers are still frustrated by the country's lack of recognition .
Google has long offered the ability to view its search in Afrikaans or Zulu. Last week it made those languages easier to access, and also added Sesotho and Xhosa versions.
But South Africans using Google's search engine to locate online retailers are still unable to buy goods if PayPal one of the world's most popular electronic payment services is used.
This is despite the fact that PayPal was invented by South African-born Elon Musk .
South Africans are unable to bid for most goods on the hugely popular eBay auction site where PayPal is the trusted method for financial transactions.
"South African residents are no longer able to open a PayPal account because we do not have the ability to support SA at this time," Paypal's website says.
"We are continuing to further research this issue and will possibly re-add SA at a later time.
"South African members who previously had an account will be able to maintain it as long as the account information does not change," the website says.
At least SA is recognised by PayPal as a potential trading nation unlike other African countries. Ask whether PayPal can be used by internet shoppers in Nigeria, Egypt or Tunisia, and the website apologises that it cannot answer the question.
PayPal works by letting buyers deposit money into an account via a credit card or bank account. The cash is then transferred into a seller's PayPal account. So it acts as a trusted third party, since the seller never sees the purchaser's banking details.
It is used in 45 countries, none of them in Africa.
"I recently wanted to purchase something on eBay and was directed to pay via PayPal," says local online shopper Ray Smith.
"But I then discovered that they do not do business with SA, though they do seem to deal with just about every other country. SA is being ostracised."
The ability to pay for goods offshore partly explains why Amazon.com is the favourite destination for South African online shoppers. Goods can be paid for by entering South African credit card details.
"EBay regards the whole of Africa as a high risk for credit card fraud and SA is tarred with the same brush," says internet researcher Arthur Goldstuck.
"It's a huge problem because most of what's for sale on eBay can only by bought through PayPal, and that applies to a range of other sites as well.
"PayPal is quick, cheap, convenient and reliable, but SA has been frozen out."
At least South African internet users can take solace in Google's increasing recognition of their online presence.
Local users previously needed to click on Google's "language tools" icon to view the site in other languages. Now a strap line offering four South African languages Sesotho, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa automatically appears whenever Google is called up on a computer in SA.
Users entering a search request in Zulu will see exactly the same content as they did before. But now, at least, they can read Google's services such as Images, News or I'm Feeling Lucky in their own language.
"There's not a lot of internet content available in Zulu, but the simple awareness of the language preferences that Google has created could result in more energy being put into creating more content in our other languages," says Goldstuck.
Users will be glad to know that SA is one of about 100 countries for which Google tailors its pages
