What's new

The rising popularity of .Com in Australia

chris

Top Contributor
Advice promoted by Victorian Government on naming. Note article only talks about availability of .com. Doesn’t even mention .com.au.

Times are a changing....

https://hub.business.vic.gov.au/marketing/how-a-professional-business-namer-comes-up-with-ideas/

I reckon they're just referring to "domains" rather than recommending .com, .com.au is a must for Aussie businesses. I don't think the average person in the street sees .com.au any different than they have in the past.

Good article though :)
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
I reckon they're just referring to "domains" rather than recommending .com, .com.au is a must for Aussie businesses. I don't think the average person in the street sees .com.au any different than they have in the past.

Good article though :)

I think the author is suggesting that for a startup .com is what they would use,

The second part of being ownable is finding a name that simply isn’t already taken. The internet and social media has ensured that pretty much every variation of language has been registered as a .com or a social handle.

There’s a reason why startups typically have these oddly made-up words for their companies. All those names are owned.

.com.au is no longer "a must" for Aussie business, many use .com and that is perfect for export sales/international expansion as well. It would be good to have both but .com.au is no longer essential because Australians are so used to .com sites, they use them far more than .com.au sites.
 

chris

Top Contributor
I think the author is suggesting that for a startup .com is what they would use,
.com.au is no longer "a must" for Aussie business, many use .com and that is perfect for export sales/international expansion as well. It would be good to have both but .com.au is no longer essential because Australians are so used to .com sites, they use them far more than .com.au sites.

I agree, for expansion etc .com is ideal - or even just for protection, but agree to disagree that .com.au is no longer essential.

Even though Australians are used to going to .com's, com.au is still very trusted and often the default choice for many local businesses.

they use them far more than .com.au sites.

Do you mean as users, or using for their businesses URLs?
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
Do you mean as users, or using for their businesses URLs?

I mean the websites people Australian's use every day, it is mostly .com's and that % is gradually going higher over time (see the first post of this thread). That growth is driven by overseas sites, local sites switching to .com and local sites now starting on .com.
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
I was surprised to see on Channel Ten News ...... adopt a dog (on Friday's) web = DogsHome/Com

Somewhat unusual for a charity to use .com.

Still I remember about 20 years ago working in a non profit org. They were needing to register a domain and the IT person's advice was "Really we should have a .org.au domain". The boss's response was "I would like this website to actually get found though" and she told them to register a .com.

This was before Google was popular and she was talking about how ridiculous it we be to tell someone the address ends in .org.au.
 

helloworld

Top Contributor
I have started a new business recently. I have not bothered with the .com.au
I did aquire the .com as a hand reg and a variable from a landing page approx $1300 AUD
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
The new face of retailing in Australia.

Was just at Doncaster shopping town and couldn't help but notice how many retailers are now advertising domains ending in .com. I think for some it is about shortness and memorability but I'd also say a big chunk of it is also for international expansion. I think many are opening small numbers of locations in other countries like NZ or Hong Kong and just using .com simplifies things greatly.

Screen Shot 2019-09-29 at 3.59.41 pm.jpg
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
Explosion of .com news today with Australian companies buying July.com (price undisclosed) after upgrading from getjuly.com, and another Australian company buying cospaces.com for $34,000.

(for July the the .com.au sites with a for sale page)

https://july.com
https://domainnamewire.com/2019/09/18/a-bumper-crop-of-end-user-domain-sales-at-uniregistry/

No longer the case that Australian companies "need" a .com.au.

News today that July has been getting considerable attention in Australia and just raised $10.5million, it seems only online and through its own stores.

(also another story on front pay of the AFR but behind a paywall)

https://www.insideretail.com.au/news/strandbags-owner-invests-8-million-in-luggage-startup-201910
 

Community sponsors

Domain Parking Manager

AddMe Reputation Management

Digital Marketing Experts

Catch Expired Domains

Web Hosting

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
11,098
Messages
92,044
Members
2,394
Latest member
Spacemo
Top