.au domains are now available for registration. Why are these now available and should you register one for your business?
The Australian Domain Administration (auDA) released the new “.au” domain, enabling Australian businesses to register shorter and more memorable domain names for their businesses. For example, yourbusiness.au could be promoted instead of yourbusiness.com.au.
The .au domain is an important digital asset for your business. Not only does it show a strong connection to Australia, that you are local, secure and validated, trusted and reliable, it is another domain that your potential clients and customers can find your business online.
.au does not replace .com.au, .net.au or .org.au, but is recommended to have registered in addition to the above, and simply redirect it to your existing domain.
Another reason you should consider registering your domain with .au, is to prevent others from registering your business name and either impersonating your business, or steering traffic to their website instead of yours.
Registrants who currently have .com.au, .net.au or .org.au, have priority status to register .au domains of the same name until 20 September 2022.
The following is an extract from CPA Weekly:
“Small businesses urged to register their internet domain names ASAP
The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson has implored small businesses to take urgent action by 20 September deadline to safeguard their brand and identity on the internet or risk seeing impersonators, web-name ‘campers’ or cyber criminals take up domain names just like theirs.
The auDA introduced the new system on 24 March allowing anyone with a connection to Australia, such as businesses, associations and individuals, to register a new category of domain name. Instead of ending with .com.au, .net.au, asn.au, etc people could register the shorter .au name. For example, shoes.com.au could be shoes.au
Australian businesses with an existing domain name only have until 20 September to reserve or register their equivalent .au domain name before it became available to the general public.
The Ombudsman said the changes could see businesses lose their customer base or be at the mercy of cyber criminals impersonating them if they did not proactively sign up to the new system.”
For more information, visit the Australian Domain Administration.
