Comments on: ccTLD co.uk Stats – Lessons For Australia

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 07:32:33 +0000

It seems that this was a legacy handed to us by Robert Elz, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Robert_Elz , anyone have more info?

By: D

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 06:39:10 +0000

Gents

Please can you give me some history as to why Australia has .com.au and not .co.au. ?

Was this due to a lack of understanding and, yet again, general global ignorance?

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:08:06 +0000

I think there’s a few more aspects to this than supply and demand. It’s also the how deep the pockets are of the domain name purchasers, for example if a supermarket chain in UK sells products to double the population of Australia, they are going to have deeper pockets and able to pay more for a domain name.
The same UK supermarket company could also be willing to pay more for the domain name because it could provide a better return on investment (than an Australian domain)- more people in the UK to tap into online, more people buying online.

Google’s localised results are meaning that the more you can tailor a domain/website to Australia the more chances its going to have of ranking well on the search engines in Australia. A very good reason to get a .com.au if your target market is in Australia.
I would say at least 93% of Australian businesses target market are Australian focused therefore .com.au makes sense.

By: John

John — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:57:09 +0000

anyone can buy a .co.uk. Its unregulated inlike Australia. This is why the market in the UK is far more active and more useful for businesses and the economy.

Anyone can buy and sell a .co.uk with no restrictions ( unlike here the in backwards AUDA controlled .com.au space.)

Until AUDA deregulates the excessive restrictions that have burdened Australia there will be little chance in the online market of Australia.

To summarise AUDA needs to
1. cut the fees they charge. ( the wholesale price is still $20 here as opposed to a few $ for .co.uk and .com)

2. cancel their restictions on buying and selling names. ( they need to open and change so they are in line with the rules for .com and .co.uk rules).

Example go here http://www.asiaregistry.com look at all the domain name extensions you can buy that dont have the excessive restrictions Australia has.

Auda is 5- 10 years behind the rest of the world in understanding domain names, the internet and current world policies.. sometimes It feels like we are in china… but even worse as anyone can freely buy and sell a .cn name!

By: Shaun McGowan

Shaun McGowan — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:53:58 +0000

Nice one. I have lived and worked in the UK and you’re right, so many .com’s used.

I was amazed at the different extensions used, it’s almost as though .co.uk is a second tier domain extension inside the UK to .com

By: Michal

Michal — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:55:56 +0000

I appreciate your insight into both the UK and Australian domain marketplace, it was a very interesting read… A few weeks ago I was looking at buying a .uk domain name but was intimidated not only by the asking price, but more so by the sheer amount of trademarks that render many names too risky to monetize…

…So basically, premium Australia domains are cheaper, less likely to have trademark disputes and preferred to the ‘.com’ version… Sounds like we are sitting on a goldmine…