Community Geographic Domain Names

[DavidL]

Australia celebrates as 100th community is given a voice!

Talgarno, Victoria is the 100th community in Australia to apply for its own website under the world first Community Geographic Domain Name Initiative

Australia is the first country in the world to implement the Community Geographic Domain Name initiative by providing localities around Australia with their own website address.

A Community Geographic Domain Name (CGDN) is a website address that includes your town name, state name and country: for example www.broome.wa.au <http://www.broome.wa.au/> , www.buderim.qld.au <http://www.buderim.qld.au/> , www.coffsharbour.nsw.au <http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.au/> or www.ballarat.vic.au <http://www.ballarat.vic.au/> .

Leonie Dunbar, General Manager of .au Community Domains (auCD) comments:
"The 100th application is an important milestone for communities Australia wide, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. An additional 300 communities have registered their interest in applying for a community website and we are currently averaging an application everyday".

Communities Australia wide are benefiting from using their websites to showcase all their town has to offer in tourism, to create disaster prevention/control plans and as a communication forum for members of the town and wider community.

At the heart of the Community Domain Name initiative is the chance for every community around Australia to be provided with their own voice to express their own ideas about what is relevant to their community.

One benefit of having a CGDN is that web users seeking information about a particular town in Australia will not have to sift through the millions of sites that appear when you enter a town name into a search engine. The easiest way to find any community now is through the CGDN website address itself.

The information age has become the 'too much information age' with communities getting lost in the World Wide Web. By providing communities around Australia with their own piece of internet land they can be easily located.

auCD is providing the 'Community Site in a Box' content management system, a website building tool free to applicants until the end of 2009 which includes hosting and unlimited issuing of geographical email addresses.

Applications for Community Geographic Domain Names are still open and community groups can find all the information they need to apply by contacting .au Community Domains on (03) 9863 8577 or online at www.aucd.org.au <http://www.aucd.org.au/> .

Examples of community website initiatives:

Buderim on the Sunshine Coast in QLD, is averaging over 20,000 hits per month at their community website www.buderim.qld.au <http://www.buderim.qld.au/> . Their community website has been a fantastic contributor to tourism in the region.

Koonwarra VIC, Being able to include information about the Country Fire Authority and a community fire plan on the Koonwarra website helped the rural Victorian town through the difficult bush fire season.
www.koonwarra.vic.au <http://www.koonwarra.vic.au/> is a valuable community resource and a trusted local voice.

Wyndham WA, as a remote small community, has set an example to other communities that isolation and low population are not barriers to being part of the Australian online community, a community that is expected to grow strongly in the next few years, linking regions, towns and people in ways not previously experienced on the internet. www.wyndham.wa.au <http://www.wyndham.wa.au/> .

Kyogle's NSW community website has provided a Car Pool Bulletin Board so community members can help each other travel the School, University and Work. See www.kyogle.nsw.au <http://www.kyogle.nsw.au/> .


For further information, pictures or interviews call Media Contact:



Leonie Dunbar

General Manager

.au Community Domains

(03) 9863 8577 or 0417 001 883

or visit www.aucd.org.au <http://www.aucd.org.au/>

 

[DotnetKris]

The question is what impact will this have on <townname>.com.au equivalents?

 

[DavidL]

The question is what impact will this have on <townname>.com.au equivalents?

Nothing I don't think. They are only available to 'community groups' so it's going to be a very much an uphill task for them to be recognised by the general public.

Even if EVERY community took part (an absolute impossibility of course), the general public would still be more likely to type in townname.com.au rather than townname.vic.au.

Shame as it's a nice idea...

 

[TroyW]

I own a couple of geo's and I agree with NetFleet. Plus people have been conditioned for years to use xxxxx.com.au.

I suspect it's an apology to community groups for the ridiculous policy of auctioning Australia's best generic domains to whoever had the most money at the time.

 

[DotnetKris]

Yes, I was thinking the same.

 

[synchronicityhosting.com]

I think this is a sleeping giant of an issue for domainers.

"They do however give more authority to .edu and .gov"

See the byronbay thread in domain appraisals for this quote from Domain Trading Post regarding Google's treatment/preference for certain domains and lack thereof.

I think these Community Geographic Domain Names will end up with a similar authority status as edu and gov. This will no doubt be a grossly unpopular opinion but I think it should affect the value of geo domains significantly (long term).

Now I realise that my heart of hearts is loyal to the search engine side of a domains value because I see it mostly in terms of organic search potential rather than direct type ins (probably because so many are already taken), and this will obviously be unaffected by the Community Geographic Domain Names, but surely some of the value of the geo domains comes from massive organic search potential as opposed to just type ins?

Robyn ( eyes closed waiting for the onslaught )

 

[TroyW]

Hi Robyn,

I don't think there'll be an onslaught. If any of us actually knew the answer we wouldn't be talking in this forum

TW

 

[DomainMarketPlace]

"They do however give more authority to .edu and .gov"

See the byronbay thread in domain appraisals for this quote from Domain Trading Post regarding Google's treatment/preference for certain domains and lack thereof.

It's worth pointing out that you can always out rank another site. My point was that those extensions are given a natural edge over others.

You'll find that the AUCD names are mostly being sold to local councils and the like who don't have a lot of resources to put into developing websites. In fact DDNS has some exclusive arrangement to sell these names with site builder software... and i think we have sold a quite a few of those 100 names.