These days, no matter what size business you are running, you will most likely have one domain name purchased, which would undoubtedly be a .com.au, if you’re running an Australian business.
Given the fact that it’s the start to a new year, when all business ideas and thoughts are foremost on the minds of business owners, we thought we would touch base on the subject of domain names.
Firstly, before we look into the importance of owning multiple domain names, when you register any domain name, it’s not only important to register it through a reputable source, but understand that registering any domain name only gives you ownership of the domain. It won’t give you access to email accounts or somewhere to store your website files, until hosting is setup with a provider.
Secondly, if you require a .com.au domain name, you should be aware that you do need an ABN and be a reputable Australian business to do this.
A bit of history on domain names..
The first domain name type ever introduced was the .com domain name back in 1985. By 1992, around 15,000 domain names had been registered. Interesting to know, isn’t it?
Not only was the .com the first domain name type, but it is also considered as a top level domain name since it only has one suffix. Other examples of top level domain names are: .info, .org and .net to name a few. Second level domain names include anything with another suffix after the main one, such as a .com.au, .org.au or .net.au.
It’s extremely important to have a .com.au registered when you’re running an Australian business and here’s why..
When your business name is typed into search engines within Australia, being a .com.au, your website will be picked up as a creditable website within Australia and have priority over other Australian businesses with websites only on .com domain names. You will also find that most of your customers these days will also assume that you do have a .com.au domain, rather than a .com, as you are located in Australia, so they will generally type in your business name followed by “.com.au” in their browsers to access your site.
How important is it to have a .com registered in Australia?
Over the years, a lot of customers have asked us how many domain names they need to register and how important it is to register more than one, especially when they’re not cheap to keep registered every year or two.
To be honest, having a .com domain is definitely not as important as having a .com.au domain name registered here in Australia. The main reason to have a .com domain name registered is to own the rights of your business name in a .com extension, should anyone else in the world decide to register it and run a similar business. Sometimes, some businesses do find as well that the .com extension of their domain name is already taken. It’s important not to panic if this is the case. It certainly won’t affect your business on a whole here in Australia.
If you have an overseas market for your business, you should definitely own the .com extension of your domain name, so that this market overseas will still find you, as your overseas audience will assume your domain name is a .com.
What other domain name extensions are there?
There are several other types of domain name extensions you can register besides the ones already mentioned. If suitable and you feel that you would like another domain name registered on another extension to hand out to your clients, such as .sydney or .melbourne (yes, these are available now), then there is certainly nothing stopping you from registering these so that you own the rights to them, should you wish to use them for marketing purposes, but it’s not necessary.
