Business, SEO

Everything You Need to Know about .AU Domains

by Grant Stern

The time of .com.au is ended. Australian Govt. has announced its own .au domain name. It doesn’t mean that .com and .net will no longer be available. However, this is a big change in digital market of Australia. Before this, businesses make their website with .com.au domain. Now you have a opportunity to get .au domain. The Australian Govt. is just working like other countries such as Uk has .uk, Japan has .jp and Pakistan has .pk. 

This step is taken by the Australian Domain Administrator (auDA). They are the administrators of Australian top level domains. They already has announced that .au domain registration will start in July.   

Are You Eligible?

To be able to get .au domain, you must be in Australia right now. You can apply for .au domain if you are:

  • an Australian registered company
  • an Australian trader
  • a charity registered in Australia
  • an Australian political party
  • a foreign company registered to trade in Australia

The domain ending with .au shows that your business or organization relates to Australia. Moreover, there are rules to get registered for .au domain. There are many businesses and companies that own .com.au domains and government uses .gov.au domain.

What Are the Benefits?

The gift here is stability, just as it is when you own any domain. You may think that holding numerous domains is worthless if you don’t business globally, however this isn’t true. There are more chances to rank in Google and target specific market if you multiple domains.  

Don’t Let People Confuse Brands

By registering for the new.au domain, you can be sure that your business name belongs to you. This prevents any possible doubts or confusion with clients whose web names are the same. Trust from customers is hard to earn, so you don’t want a competitor to take any possible customers to a fake website.

Gain the trust of customers

Localized domains are trusted by consumers. A survey in the UK found that 84% people were likely to trust the .uk websites than any other domain. The study shows that there was 20% to 30% increase in sale after getting .uk domain. So, from these results we can conclude that people trust on local websites than any other domain.

Improve Your SEO

Having more than one domains also helps to improve SEO. Finding the right keywords and staying relevant is the key. Most importantly, the .au domain will let Google and any possible clients know that your business is based in Australia. By getting the help of SEO experts, you can increase your click through rates. Web-Links optimize can help you to boost your website and business revenue.

The Cost of .au Domain Name

The price for .au domain is $8.67. This cost includes GST and is listed by auDA. You can find the registrar to get a good price and services that suits you. Most of the time, the price for 1st year is less and it goes high for the next years. So you should check the time to renew. You can register domain for 1 to 5 years. 

How to apply for an .au domain name

If you want to register the .au domain of your current business, you must submit an online priority application to the.au Domain Administration Limited.

Check your priority status

To submit a priority application, use the auDA’s priority status tool to enter your existing business domain. You must remember that you might own .com.au domain but someone holds .org.au or .net.au. In this cases, the registered domain names will be listed in order of priority by the priority status tool.

Get your priority token

If you are eligible to get your.au domain name, you will need to retrieve your priority token.  After you enter your information, you should get two numbers in the email address of your business. This will include your Priority Contact ID and your Priority Authinfo. These two numbers are required for the next step.

Register your .au domain name

After getting your Priority Contact ID and Priority Authinfo, you can register your .au domain name with your current domain host r another accredited domain server.

Your domain host will ask you Priority Contact ID and Priority Authinfo while registering.

Transfer or redirect your .au domain

If you have registered your .au domain with your previous domain host, you’re ready to go.

If you signed up with a different domain host, you’ll need to transfer your .au domain or redirect your .au domain to the address of your business website. You can do this through the user dashboard for your .au name host.