.au Australian domain discussion thread

Since the .AU market has only recently been opened up to allow trading, I thought it might be time to bring some discussion of the market here at DP.

Few facts about .au market

1) com.au's can only be regged by an Australian company with an ABN
2) there are about 1.1m .au domain registered (a strong space for a country of just 20m)
3) com.au dominates in Aus, even .com
4) there are quite a few other regulations covering content (managed by www.auda.org.au)
5) even with the opening up you're not supposed to register domains with the aim to profit. as such you must wait 6 mths before selling

There have been a few sales since June worth reporting:

FreeStuff.com.au $18,700
Forster.com.au $11,000
Tuncurry.com.au $9,900
TheOaks.com.au $8,000
AvocaBeach.com.au $7,500
Terrigal.com.au $7,500
Photographers.com.au $5,000

(source www.dntrade.com.au)

The biggest selection of com.au aftermarket listings can be found at www.netfleet.com.au.

So hopefully this stimulates some discussion amongst .au investors. What names do you have? Have you made any sales? Are you actively buying (I am by the way so PM if yoiu have any for sale).

Go the little Aussie battler - the .au!!

 

Hahah good to see a fellow aussie here, i'm looking to buy a domain soon. what are the better aussie hosting companies?

 

If you mean registrars - i recommend Intaserve.

$27.95 compared with the biggest registrar's price of $140!!!

 

Ah, more Aussies on this forum - I'm not alone

 

Yes, I've been observing .com.au domains lately - not too closely though

....imho, they're a sound investment - atleast for the next 2-3 years.

 

The lowest priced au registrar (reseller) I have seen recently is cove.com.au @ $24.95 for 2 years.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

 

hmm interesting. i have a bootload of .com.au domains. some ive had for around 8 years or so. might be worth offloading them! hah

 

Still too restricted imo. The fact you need to have a business name or company name that is virtually the same, or damn close to the domain....I wonder how you would fare with a stock name and a string of sites based around it....say your business was Wired pty ltd, could you have newswired.com.au, gameswired.com.au etc....Thats something ive been wondering.

 

Nerz, auDA aren't all that strict. A couple of years ago they decided to allow monetising as an appropriate relationship to the domain.

It's more a case of ensuring the content matches the domain rather than the biz name.

eg a parked domain like windfarms.com.au is perfectly fine.

 

Ya im considering a couple more .com.au domains, as part of the overall network.

 

The best thing about them is you get traffic. It's still possible to free rego a new generic domain & get enough traffic to cover renewals & then some.

I don't think you can say that about .com, can you?

We just bought debitcard dot com dot au for A$3K. Any thoughts

 

Are there any Aussies here who wants to open a forum or provide free blog service like Wordpress but better.
I have a great suggestion to make. PM me if interested

 

Hi wussadotcom - are you talking about a .au domain forum? If so there is one small but active forum at dntrade.com.au. You might like to get in contact with them...

 

some more sales...

debitcard.com.au - $3,000
reid.com.au - $14,300
jobs.net.au - $4,500

amongst many others. Looks like the market is humming along nicely.

 

I guess I should grab a few local domains too..., all of the australian domains I own are .com's like SydneyAutos.com, AustraliaDining.com and SydneyTravel.info

 

You really should. The .au market still has heaps of potential unlike the exhausted .com market (no offence to your domains they aren't bad at all)

 

Guys were can I get a .com.au domain and I will pay via moneybookers?

 

hmm... not sure with that method of payment. If you are looking to register, intaserve.com.au are good ($A27.95) but will need credit card (and an ABN - Australian Business Number). Netfleet.com.au id the best site for aftermarket purchases...

 

I don't have a Australian Business Number.

 

Well it would be a bit tricky then, I guess.....