"Footy, tradie, arvo. Shortening words is an Australian hobby and over the next few months Aus-tralian organisations will have the chance to register a brand new .au. It’s a great opportunity to shorten an existing domain name or to register a new one for the first time."
For example…. ozbargain.com.au can now be registered as ozbargain.au
My reason for posting this is to ask whether you believe .com will eventually become redundant?
It looks like the eligibility requirements are similar to a .com.au so not as easy to squat as a .com or the likes:
https://www.auda.org.au/au-domain-names/au-domain-names/au-d…
Also:
If you hold a domain name in any other .au namespace (eg. com.au, org.au, id.au etc.), created prior to 24 March 2022, you are able to apply for Priority Status to register its exact match in .au direct during the six-month period from launch.
that's for priority allocation for existing .com.au domain owners.
after 20 sep, anyone with an australian presence can register whatever .au domain they like
From what I read those marked for priority allocation aren't released until 3rd Oct.
Just some revenue raising by the domains, really.
"Sure, you own crowreally.com.au, but someone else could buy crowreally.au and put whatever they wanted on it.. (ominous spooky music, distant thunder)"
Oh no! Not that! (spoken in the way I respond to the noisy call center that's pretending to be Amazon/Commonwealth Bank telling me I'm about to transfer $999.99 to someone)
the noisy call center that's pretending to be Amazon/Commonwealth Bank telling me I'm about to transfer $999.99 to someone
I had one of these tell me to go f my mother the other day, very rude I thought.
Sounds like time to lodge a complaint with the fake Australian Financial Complaints Authority (click on link in Telegram to activate).
Wooo… OzRRPInstockNotifications.au is available!
ozbargain.com.au can now be registered as ozbargain.au
ozbargain.au has in fact already been registered since March. I have it redirected to ozbargain.com.au
.com will eventually become redundant
I think it's just a money grab by auDA.
What I ended up just having multiple domains of ozbargain variants (.com.au, .net.au, .au, .com, .net, .org, some misspelling, etc) which I have to pay multiple fees each year — waste of money just for the sake of protecting the brand. I think majority of people these days don't type in in the address bar anyway — people either google the term, have it already in browser history, or have already bookmarked the site. However as a brand-owner I can't afford not to register multiple domains (and pay for them in the years to come), because otherwise someone else is going to register those. Pretty sure someone would have tried to register ozbargain.au upon seeing this post.
So .au open registration — zero benefit for me. Just another fee to pay each year.
How were you able to be issued the .au already? is that because you already owned the other combinations so no one else could challenge your priority over it?
I have a .net.au that I've requested the .au for but as far as I know there's no way to tell if the .com.au owner has also requested it. We've both had them over 5 years so we both have priority under the rules I think…
That's right. Owned both .com.au and .net.au prior to 2018. Not sure what will happened in a contested situation in your case. However for ozbargain there's no other contestant so the registrar just gave it to me.
There is a way to see if the other owner has requested it, actually. Here: https://www.auda.org.au/tools/priority-status-tool
If you are both category 1 (ie. registered original domain prior to 2018), then essentially neither of you will get it and both of you will need to keep paying each year to keep the application. If a party stops paying, then they lose the domain to the other applicant. You're meant to mediate with the other owner but who is going to go through that effort honestly?
If one is category 1, and the other cat 2, then it goes to cat 1 automatically.
If both are cat 2, then it goes to whoever had it first.
Thanks for the advice. Only I've applied so far so let's see if it stays like that for the next month.
@stirlo: If they don't apply by the morning of September 21st, it'll become yours. Fingers crossed! I'm in a similar situation with my domain name.
I think it's just a money grab by auDA.
I work for a company that sells domain names and I 100% agree. It's also a pain to explain to people what the point of the new .au domain is as well. It's all a huge mess and I'm pretty sure most people in the industry did not want this to go ahead.. but here we are.
I can totally see a bunch of malicious registrations happening with this as well, especially targeting those who did not choose (or otherwise forgot to) register their .au domains.
Coughed up $90 for 3 years of .au to protect my .com.au. Money for nothing, at least 10% goes to hospitals and roads and it's tax deductible.
yeah, us too… as well as buying the .com which we don't use and just forward to our site.
Quick cash grab by auDA. Certainly making resellers a lot of money.
Speaking of auDA their customer service is horrible compared to Ausregistry back in the day. At least it's significantly easier to retrieve domain keys now.
While it's possible to hide personal information on WHOIS for some domain extensions - this practice is not permitted when you register .com.au or any other .au domain names.
https://www.domainregistration.com.au/infocentre/info-privat…
that's kind of annoying.
I like that feature when registering domains overseas.
These domain names look naked without the dot com. I guess I'd get used to it if it became the norm.
do you still need an abn to get .au ?
No, you can register it as a private individual. You'll just need to supply Australian Government ID (eg. Passport, Driver's Licence, Medicare)
Our company went through to register 180 .au domains to go along with our list of 400 .com.au domains we currently hold…
Do you work for Squatters Я Us?
No lol
In the property industry
Every project has its own domain name
like blahblahgardens.com.au ?
.com has a sense of legitimacy and so I feel .com.au will be hard to overthrow.
But never say never.
They should have made it so .com.au automatically comes with .au. Seems silly to have a Microsoft.com.au and then some random person gets Microsoft.au because Gates forgot to register the new variant in time.
They’re doing it so they get more $$$, so there’s no reason they’d want to give it for free. I’ve had my .au active for months and any competent business will get theirs given the priority system. Unless someone else has an equal claim to the .net.au etc.
Otherwise yep, some people will get .au’s for things that other businesses have .com.au’s for, just as different people have .com’s and .tv’s etc. it kind of sucks businesses need to spend increasing $$ to protect their brands, or risk customers being redirected…
And it's not even just the cost of the fee, you also have to pay an employee or contractor to do it for you, as I'm guessing most business owners don't also specialise in web stuff when they only need one website.
Finding a decent IT provider as with a decent accountant and lawyer is invaluable, so many people do it themselves with varying results.
@[Deactivated]: I see a lot of small business websites that just aren't accessible, like the domain is still a parked page, or the server has Wordpress on it but it just brings up a mysql error and has for months now. Making webpages isn't hard, but it is very hard if you only need to make one. It's like learning to make a wedding cake for your own wedding instead of just asking a baker.
I'll probably grab the au just to protect my IP but that's it.
NO, because poorly coded websites (looking at you kmart.com.au) that don’t recognise newer IANA TLDs as email addresses.
My reason for posting this is to ask whether you believe .com will eventually become redundant?
.com has been reduntant overseas in many different domains.
.com.au sticks in Australia has an overly-complicated place. IFAIK Poms use .co.uk (no m) since day one.
Right now is pretty pointless and well behind modern times.
I find it useful to be able to differentiate between a gov website, and association's website and a commercial website.
Depends on the countries. For eg Japan has always been .co.jp many others do so.
It's on "priority hold" at the moment, but I wouldn't mind getting my hands on falcon.au
That domain is a three person race with the .net.au winning so far, the applicant wins if no one else applies or it's locked out of one of the others was to apply.
For those business owners with no IT background who are considering this… NO don't do it. These are not one time fee, it's a recurring annual fee which can get a lot considering there's so many of them.
The .com and .com.au prestige is there .au will never be able to replace that. If you can bid for it then I rather you spend the money there. Finally, hire a good SEO, brand name and marketing company, get your Google presence high up there so your business be visible in searches this is more beneficial than anything else.
For those business owners with no IT background who are considering this. NO don't do it. These are not one time fee, it's a recurring annual fee which can get a lot considering there's so many of them.
That's how all domain names work you are sensually least them and you pay for this ongoing yearly.
The actual price is really only one small part of it. There's a lot of FOMO unfortunately going around at the moment and scaremongering which has led to a lot of small businesses jumping on the train even though I feel some of them don't need to waste their time.
While I think direct .au is a good thing and a great option and something that's going to be more relevant going forward most businesses don't have anything to worry about if they choose not to apply.
There's a small segment that does need to consider protecting but most probably don't.
The .com and .com.au prestige is there .au will never be able to replace that.
While the prestige to use your words will never actually happen to any extension going forward again .com and .com.au are going to fall over time as the default standard status will be eroded with the abundance of options.
We've already seen large segments of industries drawn to certain new extensions even when the .com is in their reach through a purchase in the aftermarket. These companies are opting for alternatives because a lot of their peers and industry are using that alternative.
While these movements are small now there's enough of them which is going to leave to erosion over time. .com and .com.au are not going to be considered default must halves in the next few years.
If you can bid for it then I rather you spend the money there.
Most to use your words will not need to bid on anything there's approximately less than 5% that are contested and in a contention set where more than one applicant has rights.
Most existing owners of a .au third level will be the only applicant possible and it will continue to be locked out and to September 20 and can apply and have it today. But you need to make that decision before that date because it will be made available to the general public on October 3 if you have an applied before the September 20 date.
If your extension is in a contentions set you're going to need to weigh up your options if you want to proceed forward.
So does anyone know if you can pre-order a currently prioritised domain for 3rd of October when priority ends? I have a .au I'd like to get that no current holder has requested priority over. Is it just fastest finger to click on that morning?
Correct.
TBH webhosts are getting pretty persistent with notifying companies about the .au registrations.
I seem to get an email every couple of days…
It's actually not web hosts auDA is doing a lot of the last bit of push at the last minute directly which is driving some people in the industry absolutely crazy. As the communication has been terrible and poor quality.
If no one takes advantage of the priority period and applies it will be made available to the general public on October 3. But depending on the string there is multiple strategies so just because someone hasn't applied yet doesn't mean they won't.
You won't know into 20th of September if you'll be able to pick it up on 3th of October that's when the priority period deadline ends.
Don't know if you'd want to use a pre-order your interest as a strategy for third October if you've got no priority status. But I'm sure one or two registrars will have something in the coming days weeks.
Otherwise you can always take a look at the domain name squatting industry sorry investors it's all pretty much controlled by one company here in Australia they will definitely have tools to take advantage of October 3 however don't know if they put you into some auction if there's more than one person interested though.
My reason for posting this is to ask whether you believe .com will eventually become redundant?
My opinion is yes third level in .au will eventually become irrelevant over time.
Things have changed a lot in the domain name space since new gTLDs were launched and with a second round due in the next year or two there's going to be even more of an abundance of choice of what you can put as your final dot. Not to mention after the next round they're looking to move to an ongoing model so it will be constantly allowing for new dots.
In a world like this I've stated multiple times the only important bit is going to be the .au when you're making a decision to buy.
This domain extension is going to become more popular over time not to mention the fact that direct .au domains allow for more opportunities for more types of people as it's less restricted with the minimum requirement being a citizen/resident the real winners are it going to be a lot of people that own .id.au come September 20 that extension has always had perception problems here in Australia and a lot of the applicants with .id.au have applied and looked to be uncontested with their applications so far so will be getting a nice upgrade in September.
those in that are IT savvy already locked in their .AU domains back in march/april 2022 when became available.
As per OP's message …
"For example…. ozbargain.com.au can now be registered as ozbargain.au
My reason for posting this is to ask whether you believe .com will eventually become redundant?"
It will take time (several years??? for society to adjust) … just need to look to the UK as to how it may play out here.
yet ppl there still tend to type the .com equivalent.
Guess that the registrars are the big $$$ winners in all this.
Cybersquatters, on your marks, get set……