domain name registration Archives

Ask CyberGuru: Can I buy a similar domain name that is owned by another organisation?

cyberguru Design January 29, 2019January 29, 2019Afilias, Ask CyberGuru, AuDA, domain, domain name, domain name registration, domain names, domains

Ask CyberGuru

In this month’s Ask CyberGuru, we are asked the question, “Can I buy a com.au domain name that is similar to a org.au domain name owned by another organisation?”.

In terms of your question, a com.au domain name needs to be resemble your Australian business name or trademark. The auDA or Afilias (the name of the .au Domain Administration registry), the organisation is responsible for .au domain names, advises that com.au are for commercial organisations and org.au are for not-for-profit organisations. They advise that Australian domain names must have a “close and substantial connection” to the person or business intending to use it.

If this is the case, then you can likely purchase the .com.au domain name you are seeking, and you are welcome to do so through our CyberGuru Domains website. Upon registering you need to provide your Australian Business Number (ABN), which needs to be associated to this.

However, please be mindful that if another organisation is the has a similar domain name as yours, it may lead to confusion for your visitors and also be difficult to have a good search engine ranking in place if both organisations have similar domain names, so it may be better to consider choosing another name.

If you have any question that you would like to Ask CyberGuru, please contact us.

Ask CyberGuru: Should my domain name include my business’ service?

cyberguru Design September 27, 2018November 26, 2018Ask CyberGuru, business name, domain, domain name, domain name registration

CyberGuru has recently received some enquiries regarding what domain name a business should use. For example, should a bookkeeping company called Acme use domain name acme.com.au or acmebookkeeping.com.au?

In terms how important the word is (in this case bookkeeping), if your business is predominately a bookkeeping company, then having www.acmebookkeeping.com.au is useful to search engines such as Google as it would likely index you more accurately (through the word “bookkeeping” being added).

However, you may also wish to purchase www.acme.com.au as this is easier to manually type from say a business card or brochure, or your business was to expand from just computers in the future. These domain names could be linked in that if you were to have both, you could redirect one of them to the other.

If you have any questions or to register a domain name, please contact us today.

Ask CyberGuru – What happens if I forget to renew my domain name registration?

cyberguru Products June 30, 2016June 30, 2016Ask CyberGuru, domain name registration, domain names, domain registration

In this month’s instalment of Ask CyberGuru, we answer the question, “What happens if I forget to renew my domain name registration?”.

When you buy an Australian domain name (such as .com.au, .org.au, and net.au) you own the use of that domain for the term of the registration (usually two years).

If you forget to renew your domain registration and it expires there is a 30 day grace period, during which time you can renew your domain by paying the renewal fee. During this time the domain is removed from the internet and cannot be updated. Regardless of when the domain name is renewed, the new expiry date is automatically set to 2 years from the previous expiry date.

If you fail to renew your registration during the grace period it becomes a “dropped domain” and can be bought instantly by an interested party. There are many websites and third parties which monitor dropped domains, looking for interesting domain names to buy and on-sell to new companies or re-sell to the old owner for what can be a large profit. If your domain name is scooped up by one of these companies it can be a long and expensive process to buy it back.

If you have an international domain name (such as .com, .org, .net or .biz) there is an additional redemption period after the grace period before it becomes a dropped domain, but the price of renewal goes up significantly.

The easiest way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to renew your domain registration as soon as you receive your first renewal reminder email. If you have your domain name hosted with CyberGuru we provide several reminder emails to our clients to ensure they don’t forget.

If you would like to buy or renew a domain name with CyberGuru, please contact us today or visit our Domain names page to review pricing and make a purchase.