domain name 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.

What is domain privacy and do I need it?

cyberguru Products August 30, 2017August 29, 2017domain name, domain name privacy, domain privacy, privacy, WHOIS

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 September 23, 2016September 29, 2016business, business name, domain name, email hosting, website hosting

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.

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.
The domain name should be meaningful. Either it should represent your business name or some aspect of your business.
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.
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.

What is the difference between an email address and email alias?

cyberguru Design April 8, 2016April 8, 2016configuration, domain name, domain names, email, email account, email address, email addresses, email alias, email aliases, email hosting, email set up, Microsoft Office 365;, Office 365, set up, website hosting

There are many tasks to do when starting a new organisation, and one of the more important aspects is set up email accounts for your staff. One consideration is whether to how best to set up email addresses and aliases. This is also important when setting up new domain names, website or email hosting packages or a Microsoft Office 365 environment.

Generally, email addresses are the name of the person using the email account. In the case of Mary Jones, her email address could be first name (mary@domainname.org.au), her full name (maryjones@domainname.org.au) or abbreviated somehow (for example, mjones@domainname.org.au or maryj@domainname.org.au). Organisations keen on individual staff may choose to do this, but as staff leave the organisation, their email accounts are then deactivated or removed which has the potential to lose mail.

A growing number of organisations are now using email aliases to represent the positions of their staff (for instance, ceo@domainname.org.au or director@domainname.org.au). These often forward to the email address, so that if Mary Jones’ email address is ceo@domainname.org.au, any emails sent to this address can be forwarded to her named email address (mary@domainname.org.au). In some organisations, generic aliases are set up for departments, such as Administration, Sales and Marketing. These can be sent to go to groups of people.

Depending on your needs, your organisation may have both email addresses and aliases. Organisations may also wish to consider using some aliases or generic accounts to separate some of their emails should they seek the assistance of someone in the future. CyberGuru also encourages the use of separate email addresses for business and personal use, and a secondary email account is one way to do this.

CyberGuru can walk you through the selection of appropriate email addresses when you set up a domain name, website or email hosting package, or a Microsoft Office 365 environment. lf we can assist you in any way, please contact us.

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