Australia registers two millionth domain name as prices for established sites take off

The number of domain names registered as a .com.au URL has now reached two million, and the market is heating up, with nearly 25% of those having been sold within the last 12 months.

But those in the industry say the explosion of .com.au domains means businesses now have to constantly think up new ideas for unique and memorable websites, and are paying more for existing URLs.

The new figures come from .com.au regulator AusRegistry, which says the number of domains has grown from about 275,000 in 2002 and represents one of the biggest registries of domain names in the world.

The data shows about 85.99% of .au domains are registered as .com.au, followed by 10.8% with .net.au, 2.5% using .org.au, 0.5% using id.au, and 0.2% using asn.au. Only about 0.01% of websites use the .gov.au or .edu.au domains.

“Since 2002 there has been an average of 25% year-on-year growth,” AusRegistry chief executive Adrian Kinderis says. “It’s quite astounding, however when we took over the Domain Name Registry eight years ago we made a conscious effort to focus on marketing the .au country code domain as the premier space for Australian businesses online.”

Of course, not all of those two million websites are being used. Many are used as redirects – businesses take URLs that deliberately mispell the company’s name, and then direct the user back to their official site.

Major businesses including Google and Telstra are known to have done this. In particular, Telstra uses BigPong.com to direct traffic to the BigPond home page.

“We are seeing a lot more registrations of the misspelling of a word and then using that as a protection mechanism for a brand,” Kinderis says.

There have been reports major businesses, such as media giant Fairfax, are sitting on a storehouse of URLs, containing tens of thousands of possible websites for them to use.

The need to hold on to these websites is becoming even more important, as Kinderis points out the most obvious URLs have already been taken for several years.

“There is crowding in the .com space, to be sure. It’s almost impossible to get a domain for a specific business interest in the .com space because they’re simply already taken.”

“People are definitely paying more for domains.”

NetFleet managing director David Lye says this is why the drop-off rate for URLs isn’t as big as it used to be – businesses are watching the status of existing domains and then are paying a premium when they suddenly come on the market.

Last year, Woolworths bought hardware.com.au for $33,000, while poker.com.au sold in January for $100,000. Lye says these prices aren’t going to slowdown anytime soon as demand grows for established, popular names.

“January and February have been record months in terms of domain name sales, so I think that’s a good indication of how the market is heading. For us, January was an all-time record, above $100,000.”

“The other thing that is fuelling demand is that these domains are just snapped up the second they expire. The drop-off isn’t what it used to be, and that’s definitely fuelling things.”

Lye says businesses really need to spend more time thinking about their domains, and should consider scouring through existing markets even if they need to pay a little bit more for a good name.

“My golden rule is that you shouldn’t compromise. It’s just not worth it – your physical address on the web is so important. Sometimes when it comes to the domain, businesses just give it a 10-minute thought.”

“Don’t compromise. Look at what’s available on the aftermarket, what’s expiring because if you settle for second best you’ll regret it.”

However, Kinderis says businesses do have some hope about getting a fairly unique name.

“The good thing about .com.au is that it’s regulated, whereas .com is really a free for all. To register for a .com.au domain you need an ABN and business number, and that definitely limits the cyber-squatting you see in the .com space.”