domain name

Ask CyberGuru – Should I purchase a claimed domain name?

cyberguru Design , , ,
Ask CyberGuru – Should I purchase a claimed domain name?

Ask CyberGuru

In this month’s Ask CyberGuru, we are asked, “I’ve been advised that my domain name has been claimed and offered to purchase a domain name from someone who had advised that they have a statutory obligation to offer me the first right of registration. Should I purchase this domain name?”.

Upon review of various examples we have seen of this, the email in question is reportedly from an Australian business claiming there is an application for a similar domain name using the .info domain name extension. In these cases, we have seen the business is seeking a significant amount of money for the registration purchasing such the said domain.

We have reviewed the company as well as other examples reported online, and based upon our knowledge and research, we don’t recommend going ahead with this via the organisation in question to do this.

However, should you wish to purchase the domain name, we would suggest going through a suitable domain name registrar to do this. If this is something you are looking to do, we can assist and advise accordingly.

If you have a question you would like to Ask CyberGuru, please feel free to contact us.

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

cyberguru Design , , , , , , ,

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

Ask CyberGuru

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.

What is domain privacy and do I need it?

cyberguru Products , , , ,
What is domain privacy and do I need it?

Image of text reading "www."

When you register a .com or .net domain name, your personal contact information such as name, email address and phone number is stored in a publicly accessible database known as WHOIS.

As a result, it is possible for spammers to review the WHOIS database and attempt to contact you. This can include fictitious renewal notifications, offers for website or search engine optimisation reviews or general unsolicited emails.

To prevent this, you can purchase a Domain Privacy product when you purchase your domain name. Domain Privacy prevents unauthorised visitors from viewing your personal information, while allowing access to the necessary people so that official communications such as renewal notices from your service provider can be sent to you.

Australian domain names have different policies and include a higher level of protection of personal information. Only the registrant entity, contact names and email addresses details are available to the public from the .au WHOIS.

You can add Domain Privacy to your website through your domain name registrar. If your domain name registrar doesn’t provide this service, we can transfer your domain name to our servers and offer this to you.

If you would like more information on Domain Privacy, please contact us.

Should my domain name be the same as my business name?

cyberguru Products , , , ,
Should my domain name be the same as my business name?

Image of text reading "www."

One of the big decisions clients face when looking for a website is what domain name to choose. Sometimes there is confusion over whether their domain name should be the same as their business name, so let’s start by defining what each of these are.

A business name uniquely identifies a business and registering a business name serves as a means of identifying the business owners. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) maintains the business name registry. Business name registration is compulsory and a condition of trading.

A domain name is a textural address for a location on the internet which corresponds to the alpha numeric address that computers read. Businesses are required to register a domain name if they want a website or a customised email address (eg. abc@domainname.com.au). Furthermore, registering a business name does not guarantee someone the rights to register their business name as a domain name.

This gives businesses have the right to choose whichever domain name/s they want. There a few things to consider when choosing a domain name, which may affect your choice of business name if you haven’t picked one already.

  1. The domain name should be as simple as possible. If it is too long or hard to spell you may lose potential business if they can’t find you or are directed to a different website. If you have a long business name, consider abbreviating the name.
  2. The domain name should be meaningful. Either it should represent your business name or some aspect of your business.
  3. Check what domain names are available. Think you’ve come up with an awesome domain name? Someone else may have already had the same idea.
  4. Consider your audience. If you’re going to be selling locally then a .com.au address is fine, but if you want to sell internationally then you should consider buying a .com address as well.

If you would like to register a domain name, a website hosting or email hosting package, or need any assistance with your website please feel free to contact us.