There have been a few emails being sent around recently about registering your .au domain. So, what’s this about?
The Australian Domain Authority (AUDA) has released new .au domains (think .com.au, .org.au and .net.au but just for Australian businesses). There are plenty of people who have already purchased the .com.au/.org.au versions of the domain, so it is worth considering if you register the .au version of your domain.
There are some things to consider about domain registration – your brand and digital reputation, security risk and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) value. Registering the .au version of your domain helps to ensure that no one else registers the .au version of your site. From October 4 anyone can register the .au variant of your domain if you haven’t done so, and you may end up having to undertake legal action to get it back if they used it for anything shady or scammy. Low risk – but as you can see – it’s a good IP protection move.
AUDA: More about the .au announcement here
Threesides’ Recommendation
Register the domain, and then redirect it to your current domain.
If you already have a variety of .au variations (.net.au, .org.au, etc) registered, it’s worth registering the direct variant and redirecting it to your primary domain.
Google and other search engines will be treating it like a .com.au domain – prioritising it over other domains for Australian searches. For example, Threesides.au will rank higher than Threesides.com if you’re Googling from Australia; but it will be treated the same as Threesides.com.au.
How to Register your .au domain
The Easy Way:
- Get in touch with your IT people and ask them to register and redirect the .au domain to your primary domain.
The Harder Way
If you’re doing it yourself; here are the steps
- Check the status of your .au domain. Use AUDA’s look-up tool here: https://whois.auda.org.au/
- You will be told whether an existing registration is found. If no registration is found, you can register this yourself.
- Finally – Register the .au domain with your current domain registrar
So in summary – speak to your IT people for help or follow the instructions above to finalise these steps and that’s another thing you can tick off the to-do list.
If you get really stuck, reach out and we will see what we can do to help.
