Domain Names – .au or .com

[Optical]

Up

0

::

Is there any benefit nowadays with choosing an Australian domain name ending in .com.au or (just.au in future) over just .com?
I will be selling almost exclusively to Australian customers on-line and “Australian Made” is going to be a selling point.
I will be using Shopify.
Is there any benefit to buying the domain name from Shopify or are others such as Go Daddy better?

[Paul – FS Concierge]

Up

0

::

Hi And Welcome to Flying Solo It is great to have you!

Thank you for joining our community and posting.

Some Aussies feel more secure when they see .au and it can have some impact on Google search.

You manage the domain and the website separately so changes in future are more complicated if the companies you use are different,,, not that hard to overcome, but more steps are added and they can confuse some people.

Cheers
~Paul

[Chrispro]

Up

0

::

Given that you “will be selling almost exclusively to Australian customers on-line and “Australian Made” is going to be a selling point” I would say it’s a no-brainer to go with the .com.au. People consider a .com.au to be an ‘Australian website’, whereas a .com focussed on selling to Aussies can be a bit confusing.

[Tom Valcanis]

Up

2

::

Former .au Domain Administration employee here…

Getting a .com.au offers many protection benefits that .com doesn’t.

1. First of all, all net/com/.au registrants must have an ABN. This is as much consumer protection as it is business protection. If a .com.au registrant scams a whole lot of people for example, they can be traced back and be held liable.
2. If someone registers a misspelling of your website or tries to defraud your website using the .au namespace, you can complain to auDA and have the domain name deleted.
3. It prevents competition from buying up similar or generic domains similar to yours as their site needs to be closely and substantially connected to the domain they intend to use. They can’t just buy up your business name or variations thereof and sit on it forever.
4. Your .au registrar is accredited by auDA and is regulated; .com etc. is not.
5. Not a benefit, but more of a tip: if you pay more than the wholesale registry price for an .au domain, it’s unlikely you’ll be slugged with useless upsells and exorbitant renewal fees. The current wholesale price is $8.61/yr (almost exclusively sold in two year registration blocks.) Insane registrars and/or sprightly fathers should be avoided.

I sell words because my words sell. Copywriter at I Sell Words - 0417120749

[Paul – FS Concierge]

Up

1

::

@TomValcanis – thank you for your informative and detailed reply.

Cheers
~Paul

[Glen]

Up

0

::

I wrote a fairly detailed response to this but I have a feeling it didn’t go through because I was using dummy website address links as examples. Long story short, .com.au will be the one to go with if you are aiming for customers in Australia due to the trust it instills, and its easier to have the domain stay under the same roof as Shopfiy, less complicated, you don’t need to then instruct the domain to point to the shopify web hosting space where your shop is.

Thriving Web Design  

[Glen]

Up

1

::

Hi Optical nice to virtually meet you.

Is there any benefit nowadays with choosing an Australian domain name ending in .com.au or (just.au in future) over just .com?

I get asked this a lot, while there is no difference between a .com and a .com.au or a .au, I would echo the same others have already said. And that is that potential customers in Australia are going to instantly recognise the business as Australian which can instill a bit more confidence.

It’s not a die-hard rule to follow, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to go for a .com.au

I will be using Shopify.
Is there any benefit to buying the domain name from Shopify or are others such as Go Daddy better?

Not really. Other than it just being easier and less complicated to have both under the one house, particularly if you’re not a techn-savvy person. If you have your domain name with another company, it means you need to go into the settings of that domain and instruct the domain to point to your web hosting, which, in this case, would be Shopify. Having it all with Shopify would make this less complicated for you.

I’ll add an additional bit of info you may or may not be considering and my thoughts on it while I’m here
What happens if you end up buying both domains, .com AND .com.au, what then?
My recommendation here is unless you are planning on having businesses with specific needs per country, it’s not something I would recommend. When Google crawls the web and indexes websites in search results, they like to know which is the one source of truth. That is, which is the original link address to go by.

You may have two website addresses for example: (these are not actual website addresses)

http://www.joeblogsbakery.com

and

http://www.joeblogsbakery.com.au

Without knowing which is which, even if you direct one domain to point to the other, Google will have difficulty figuring out which page should rank. If you have three keywords you’re trying to rank for on the .com.au website, it might decide to rank those keywords on the .com website instead.

This can make things very messy for SEO (search engine optimisation).

So what to do

Well the answer is to use Canonical URLs.
This is a bit of code inserted into a website, as a tag. Usually looks like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.website.com/page/&#8221; />

What this does is tell Google which is the master copy of a webpage.

So, if we place in our website code this tag:

link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.joeblogsbakery.com.au ” />

….then Google knows that the master copy of that home page is the one with .com.au on the end.

Thriving Web Design  

[Paul – FS Concierge]

Up

1

::

Thanks for your detailed answers @Glen.

~Cheers
Paul

[pcaffin]

Up

0

::

Given the small cost involved, register both, then have one redirect to the other.

That way, whichever address you promote in other media or advertising, your customers will get to your website either way.

Does an .au domain guarantee Australian? It’s not so hard and fast now. Lots of multinationals register a domain using their local holding companies. Some sort of About page on your website, to go into who you are and what you do, never goes astray.

[Scarlett74]

Up

0

::

If your views are from Australia then choose .au. Otherwise .com is the best option.

eBay Listing Tool

[Author]

Posts