Forgive me for the noob question, but is it still worth registering .com.au domains or are these likely to be superseded by the new .au domains?
Com is great, but the entry costs are so much higher. Very difficult for a "noob" domain investor to break into that market without dropping a lot of cash...Why bother with this extension when .com is doing so well?
Com is great, but the entry costs are so much higher. Very difficult for a "noob" domain investor to break into that market without dropping a lot of cash...
Sorry I should have clarified that I was referring to registering a .com.au domain for the purpose of developing a website. If I was starting a local soccer club and was going to register a domain for its website, should I use [city]soccer.com or [city]soccer.com.au? I understand that .com.au may have some SEO benefits?
LOL, didn't anyone else get that ????com.au remains highly valued and competitive enough to have registrars...........
i think a .au will flop faster then uk and nz as .com.au is far stronger.
tim
Forgive me for the noob question, but is it still worth registering .com.au domains or are these likely to be superseded by the new .au domains?
Customers of 123-Reg are experiencing a familiar feeling of annoyance, this time over a decision to automatically register them for .UK domains, which they will then have to pay for after two years.
In a letter sent to customers, seen by The Register, the company said the domains will be available to manage from November 2017. "These domains are absolutely free of charge for 2 years," it said.
The .uk domain was launched by Nominet in 2014, but as one 123-Reg customer noted, it hasn’t performed well. "Very few in the industry other than Nominet and registrars wanted it," he said.
The .uk variants of .co.uk domains are reserved until 2019 and can only be registered by the owners of the .co.uk domains. So only The Register could register theregister.uk until 2019.
Nominet are running a promotion where .co.uk owners can register the corresponding .uk variant for two years for free. This is an attempt to bolster the registration rate, he said.
"123-Reg have taken it upon themselves to take this one step further and automatically register the .uk variant for their customers who hold .co.uk domains," he said.
"As far as ensuring competitors don’t get the domains instead, there are still two years left on the 'right to register' period.
"That's plenty of time for Nominet and registrars to communicate the supposed benefits of .uk domains to owners of .co.uk domains, and to give them easy paths to registration.
"This looks like a cynical attempt to both raise the rate of registration, and make money from the inevitable raft of auto-renewals from those who don’t realise this is happening," he said.
Another said: "They are going to give me .uk domains that match my already owned domains unless I opt out. Then they will charge me for them in two years' time! I have to opt out, but their website isn’t working as usual. I personally think that this is completely unacceptable, and a complete con!"
The company recently angered customers by its plans to hike prices by 20 per cent later this year.
That followed a number of gaffes at the company over several years, including reports of databases running over unsecured access links, websites and email services down due to multiple DDoS attacks, and services generally being unavailable due to a host of outages.