How to get your business ready for the Australian domain name changes

Lynda Schenk
9 September, 2022

Attention all business owners: it’s time to assemble your web developers! Heres how to get your business ready for the Australian domain name changes.

Late last week, we received an update from the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) about the availability of new Australian web domains.

Until recently, the only publicly available Australian domain names finished with com.au, net.au, and org.au (for non-for-profit organisations). Now, there is an option to register a new .au domain (e.g. mybusiness.au), known as .au direct.

Anyone with an Australian web presence (including businesses, organisations and individuals) can now register this new category of domain name to complement their existing namespaces.

Australians have until 20 September 2022 to seek priority allocation of an .au direct domain name that matches their existing domain name. However, if you miss this deadline, then your .au direct domain name becomes available to the general public and anyone can seek to register it.

It’s always been important that business owners, organisation, and individuals own all variations of their online business domains to ensure their brand safety and proprietary rights.

Owning all variations of your domain name is important, including:

those covering potential or common typos (e.g. pruplegiraffe.com.au),
lookalike names, previous business names,
descriptive names (e.g. purplegiraffemarketingconsultants.com.au),

Owning these variations, along with all domain variations, ensures that customers don’t accidentally miss your website (or visit a competitor’s instead!).

We recommend purchasing the new option prior to the September 20 deadline if you want to protect your business name and lock others out from registering it after the priority allocation period ends. We don’t recommend that you change your existing domain name to the new, shorter version, but rather ‘own’ both options. 

You can reserve your ‘.au direct’ domain name here by selecting an auDA accredited registrar.

If you need assistance with the change of your domain, our team of marketing experts is ready to help! Chat to us today.

Lynda Schenk

For almost three decades, Lynda Schenk has worked across a diverse range of industries including wine, hospitality, human resources, transport, medical devices, building and construction, conveyancing, landscape gardening, water filtration, organic farming, industrial cleaning and not-for-profit industries. She has a deep understanding of the marketing needs of companies, small and large. Lynda has a natural ability to talk to people, understand their business and their objectives, and then to work with them to formulate marketing plans, brand strategies and marketing communication plans that build brand equity, growth and profitability. Lynda is the winner of the Fabulous Ladies of Wine, 2018 Wine Marketer of the Year and a 2019 Telstra Business Woman of the Year, Small Business Category finalist and a finalist of the Marketing category for the 2023 and 2024 Australian Small Business Champions Awards.