I have been quite interested to see the prices that .net.au domains have been achieving over the past couple of weeks.

It's got me wondering, has anyone here had much success with reselling .net.au domains to retail buyers or selling developed .net.au sites?

Secondly, has anyone read or done any studies on if a similar exact match bonus is applied to .net.au domains as .com.au domains?

.net.au performance is a long running debate on this forum mate. I think from a domaining point of view the resale value in the current market is less than impressive and the high $$$ sales of recent times aren't a clear indication of a rising in that trend.

For end users I think the fear is using a .net.au means that marketing efforts/money could be lost to the .com.au competitor. So in this instance, instead of running with bookkeeping.net.au, people tend to use abcbookkeeping.com.au or geobookkeeping.com.au. Some small business owners are recognizing the value of generic.net.au's and starting to build feeder sites/networks with lets say bookkeeping.net.au building authority to abcbookkeeping.com.au via content and back links.

In my experience, and as you would know domain extension is only one of 200+ factors for the big G, so content + concentrated link building etc can still get a .net.au ranking. Personally I have found that an exact match .com.au can be on front page within weeks with 5-6 decent original articles (depending on competition) but alas, the .net.au does take longer for some reason.

With that said, there are a squillion .net.au generics and names still available for reg fee and could return a high return on investment % in that instance over time.

I don't have a massive amount of startup capital, so I generally chase one decent .com.au, then try to capture relevant .net.au's that relate to it.

I think it is but you're still behind the 8-ball due to Google's apparent prejudice against net.au's

Search 'web designers' and check the top result

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I think Google does favor .com and .com.au for specific things such as names and places for example. but really exact match domains can come in the form of .info and you can still rank them effectively for big terms, I have done it time and time again, against big competitors in the USA.

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I would be betting that the exact.info domain wouldn't get any favouritism in the Google algorithm, though like with any website regardless of the domain, it generally ranks well for its own name because most people linking to the site are going to use the name as the anchor text more so than anything else.

So if you register a .info and name the site the same as the domain then with time it will rank well for that term naturally.

In terms of that search though, there is no .com.au competitor. webdesigners.com.au doesn't resolve and webdesigner.com.au is a one-page poorly constructed page.

That's a great point. Additionally, Google will relax their 'too much anchor text is exactly the same' penalty in this instance

Sure but my point was just about the exact match bonus & whether it is passed on to nert.au domains.

If you look at the second result for example - exa.com.au- it has way way better content, is a PR6 with many more (authoritative) backlinks but still ranks lower.

I reckon this suggests that the exact match bonus does indeed apply for net.au.

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The first result I see for "Web Designers" is now www.webdesigners.net.au (Google AUS)...

http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&biw=...=web+designers

Wow, that was a good effort to get things there that quick, maybe the times are changing with .net.au domains...

When was the last time you looked at or searched travel.net.au carsguide.net.au, realestate.net.au , netfleet.net.au, news.net.au, smh.net.au drop.net.au dntrade.net.au etc?

The status of the .com over the .net always has been far greater. There is even a stigma of some companies who use the .net.. it often shows they are not the leader in their field of expertise etc

If I see a .com in the search results and a .net I wrongly often assume the .com would be a better website or someone who is smarter, more serious, the leader etc. Often Im very wrong but still many people think .com.au .com.au .com.au.. not many think .net.au looking at world domain sales results over time proves this .com verses net thinking of being far greater market value is still alive and well.

For SEO but they can be useful if you have no other choices and cant get the .com.au but resale wise their will be les people who will pay premium for them later