Like most companies you probably have a .com.au domain, but did you know soon you will be able to register a .au domain?
You need to know though as you might need to take steps to protect it and make sure you get it and not some one else.
Over 3 million .com.au domains are currently registered, not bad for a country of 24 million people. It has been growth faster every year as well.
In 2002 the count as at 282,632 domains, that grew to 500,000 domain names in 2005. By 2006 it was at 710,428. 1 million domains were registered by 2007 and the it reached 3 million in 2016. Of those 3 million about 87% of are .com.au.
The board that runs the .au registry, auDA decided to accept the recommendation of the “2015 Names Policy Panel” to introduce direct registrations in .au – for example, “yourname.au”.
The board agreed with the reasons from the panel that the introduction of direct registrations would:
make available domain names which are shorter, more appealing and more memorable
give Australians more choice in deciding what domain name to register
respond to market demand
be more attractive to natural individuals than the current option, id.au
strengthen the “.au brand” in a globally competitive market
add value to all three main categories of users – registrars and resellers, registrants and ultimate users of the .au domain name system.
How will they decide you gets what?
No final decisions are locked in on this but they have discussed that use of .net.au and .com.au domains to decide. So if you company owns the .com.au and .net.au domain you get first dibs on buying the .au domain. If you own the .com.au and some ones else owns the .net.au it might come down to a auction or some other method.
So when is it going to happen, when can we start registering these names?
At the moment auDA has decided to conduct a tender process to select a provider to build and operate a dedicated .au registry. Its a complex process but it the a date of July 2018 is set for its completion. So soon after this they might start selling the .au domains.
So what do we recommend?
We currently sell .com.au and .net.au domains for $10 a year, that is a wholesale no profits price. So it makes sense to us to just buy both just incase.