Although it was feared that there would be a major upheaval of the policies to make them more open to foreign investment, the recommendations seem to support keeping the majority of the existing rules in place but to simply clarify a number of areas.

Below is a summary of their recommendations:

1. It will remain that only Australians can register AU domains, however clarification will be provided on the org.au and asn.au criteria requirements ensuring that there is no confusion on their use
2. auDA will release details of it’s audits to illustrate to the industry how it performs it’s audits
3. The panel recommends that the licence term should be flexible – instead of only 2 years, registrants will be able to select 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 year
4. No changes will be made to explicity discuss leasing of domains, however it will be clarified. Essentially the registrant will remain responsible for the domain in auDA’s eyes
5. The panel suggests releasing single letter domains for registration
6. The id.au space will be relaxed to allow domain names referring to personal hobbies and interests, as opposed to only allowed if referring to the person’s name
7. Direct registrations under AU not to be permitted at this time
8. The reserved name list and mispelling policies will be retained
9. The “Domain Monetisation Policy” will be abolished, instead the existing close and substantial rule will cover domain monetisation

The AU domain policies can be seen as overly strict compared to a .com however this can be a good thing for webmasters and owners of sites within the AU space. Within Australia the general public know and trust that a AU domain means it’s Australian, therefore providing that extra level of trust in dealing with the site.

Domainers investing in AU domains would have probably liked to see the rules relaxed and therefore providing them with a bigger market to trade their domains. However based on this review, auDA doesn’t appear to be allowing the AU domain space to go in that direction.

There is a fear in the Australian webmaster community that auDA will take your domain from you. The findings of the panel appear to of recognised this fear and it’s good to see that they will be clarifying some of these policies, especially the “Domain Monetisation Policy”.

The current “Domain Monetisation Policy” reads as though it only supports the use a domain parking style pages where you use Google Adsense style sdvertising to generate money from it, and not any other content. auDA most certainly needs to clarify this to reassure Australian webmasters that they are developing sites within the auDA policies.

The public have the opportunity to comment on the recommendations until Friday, 10 June 2011. You can comment either in writing or via an online survey.

For more information and to respond, visit http://www.auda.org.au/2010npp/2010npp-index/.

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First there were 2 six figure domain sales – in January poker.com.au sold for US$100,000 to international sport gambling company 888.com, and in the last couple of days its been revealed that Zoupon has paid over $100,000 for deals.com.au.

electricity.com.au and fridges.com.au have also sold this year for $30,000 and $20,000 respecitively.

You can find a list of 2011 AU domain sales at dnTrade.com.au’s Domain Sales List 2011.

Flippa is also showing a number of AU site sales in the past month, including www.apartmentreviews.com.au selling for US$8,700 and ardrone.com.au selling for US$4,995. A collection of 18 travel sites including sea-world.com.au and luna-park.com.au also sold for US$2,900.

In the same period a number of auctions also failed to close including www.everythingpet.com.au (seeking $10,000), cateringclassifieds.com.au (seeking $8,000) and jotter.com.au (seeking $2,500) all attracting no bids. www.drivingschooldirectory.com.au was also offered however only reached $4,750 which was under the reserve.

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The changes standardised the exact date and time that an expired domain name becomes available to register again. Each day auDA publishes an Official Domain Drop List listing all the domains that will be dropping at the next scheduled drop time.

Around the same time a number of services were created which will catch dropping domain names for you. They essentially work by attempting to repeatedly register the domain name for the period around the known drop time (which is 1PM AEST) – depending on the timing they should snatch it very close to it becoming available.

The changes and these services have effectively made it impossible for you to manually capture a desirable dropping domain name without using these services.

These services pre-offer all expiring domain names and when there are multiple interested parties, the domain is auctioned off. Highly desirable domain names are selling for thousands of dollars.

Two examples of these dropping services are Drop.com.au and Netfleet.

Based on the published results, Drop.com.au claim a 98% success rate and the NetFleet results show very cheap winning bids (<$100), this tends to indicate Drop.com.au is the more successful service.

Both charge a membership fee just to be able to bid (drop.com.au is $250 one time, NetFleet is $109.95/yr). If your bid is unsuccessful then you don’t pay anything however the membership fee is still not refundable. Your bid amount also doesn’t include the registration fee (which is $44.95 – $49.95/2 years for a .com.au) and in the case of drop.com.au it doesn’t include the 10% GST either.

I believe these arrangements favour domain investors rather than your average person trying to catch that forgotten domain name however it would depend on your budget.

If you want to catch dropping AU domains, whether you like it or a not, a dropping service would appear now to be essential.

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Some people (including myself) actually select their domain name before deciding on their business name. If you are going to be promoting your business name, it makes complete sense that your web site also gets the benefit of that.

Here are some hints and tips for when coming up with a domain name:

1. keep it short - sure domain names can be long but remember that people will need to type it in to their browser or email program, the shorter your domain name the better.
2. think twice about hyphens as they add confusion for people, and if left out they could go to a competitor
3. avoid needing to explain your domain name – for example, “the number one” versus “one spelt out”
4. check for bad combinations – there are many unfortunate domain names which aren’t initially obvious, for example Pen Island and Experts Exchange when joined together produce unwanted domain names.
5. keyword rich – search engines consider the domain name very important indicator of the site’s content. Having your main keyword within your domain name will provide massive benefits to your SEO efforts.
6. the extension can also reflect a lot on your business – in Australia for example a .com.au is known for Australian businesses, having a .net.au or a .info instead could confuse people.

The above aren’t strict rules  but make sure you consider them all. In certain circumstances they may not be applicable to you, for example maybe you want to target search engine traffic so length and hyphens are irrelevant.

If you need help finding that perfect domain name, don’t forget our artcile on domain name suggestion tools.

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The following list will allow you to compare prices of the various AU domain name extensions on offer.

Registrar	.com.au	.net.au	.asn.au	.id.au	.org.au	Pricing URL
Name Scout	$27.45	$27.45	$19.45	$24.95	$19.45	?
IntaServe	$27.95	$27.95	$33.00	$25.00	$9.50	?
MD Webhosting	$34.95	$34.95	$24.95	$24.95	$24.95	?
Cheaper Domains	$35.00	$35.00	$20.00	$28.00	$20.00	?
Domain Central	$37.95	$37.95	$37.95	$37.95	$37.95	?
Smarty Host	$40.00	$40.00	$40.00	$40.00	$40.00	?
Net Registry	$44.95	$44.95	$38.50	$29.95	$13.75	?
Instra Corporation	$45.00	$45.00	$34.00	$34.00	$34.00	?
Web Access	$49.50	$49.50	$49.50	$49.50	$49.50	?
Domain8	$49.95	$49.95				?
Planet Domain	$55.00	$55.00	$46.51	$41.03	$33.00	?
AussieHQ	$59.00	$59.00	$49.00	$49.00	$49.00	?
Click 'n Go	$59.00	$59.00	$29.00	$35.00	$29.00	?
Discount Domain Name Services	$65.00	$65.00	$20.00	$39.00	$20.00	?
Anchor	$69.00	$69.00	$69.00	$49.00	$22.00	?
Aust Domains	$69.00	$69.00	$56.00	$42.00	$36.00	?
Enetica	$69.00	$69.00	$39.00	$39.00	$39.00	?
Westnet Hosting	$88.00	$88.00	$55.00	$45.00	$35.00	?
Go Domains	$98.00	$98.00	$59.00	$39.95	$22.00	?
TPP Internet	$99.00	$99.00	$54.00	$49.00	$54.00	?
Connect West	$99.00	$99.00	$49.00	$49.00	$49.00	?
Domain Candy	$99.00	$99.00	$66.00	$44.00	$33.00	?
Explorer Domains	$99.95	$99.95	$84.95	$74.95	$44.95	?
Domain Registration Services	$127.00	$127.00	$60.00	$59.00	$30.00	?
Melbourne IT	$140.00	$140.00		$99.00	$88.00	?

All prices quoted are in AUD dollars and are for 2 years.

Note: Namescout do not provide a tax invoice and therefore no GST is claimable.

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Below is a list of reported sales in 2009 that managed to pass the $5,000 mark.

• SexToys.com.au $25,500
• Stay.com.au $14,000
• Mortgage.net.au $13,500
• TrinityBeach.com.au $10,000
• WebDesign.net.au $10,000
• Everybody.com.au $9,900
• TouchPoint.com.au $7,500
• NoAgent.com.au $8,000
• JervisBay.com.au $7,450
• EveryDrop.com.au $7,000
• Selby.com.au $7,000
• Chelsea.com.au $6,250
• Brothels.com.au $6,250
• Kingsford.com.au $5,000
• Holiday.net.au $5,000
• Merimbula.net.au $5,000 (seems to be now listed for sale @ $20,000)

For a list of all domains see the 2009 Domain Sales List at the DNTrade forums.

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Getting the right domain name for your site is extrememly important, but it’s also very time consuming to find one that’s still available. Here are a collection of web sites that will help you come up with that perfect name.

Note: most of these do not support AU domain names, only gTLDs such as .com, .net, etc.

Name Boy

At NameBoy you simply enter a few keywords to find, and NameBoy will generate domain names based on the keywords you enter. Supports .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .tv

Make Words

MakeWords.com is a domain search workstation that offers a variety of name suggestion methods that helps you find available domains. With just a few clicks users can easily generate hundreds of random phonetic names, enter their own keywords and combine them with preset wordlists containing categorized suffixes and prefixes.

Domain Name Soup

Domain Name Soup is a free domain name generator to help you find available domain names. Whether you are looking to create a domain portfolio or are just looking for a cool domain for your blog or business, the tools at domainnamesoup.com should be able to help.

Bust A Name

Bust A Name allows you to enter a variety of keywords and it will find all combinations of those words that are available to register. Make sure you check out the video tutorial to get the most from this site.

123 Finder

123 Finder provides a range of tools/lists including keyword search, dictionary words, 4 to 10 character length domain lists and more.

Domain.nr

Domai.nr makes finding pithy URLs easy by querying 280 top-level domains and another 2,014 second-level ones for domain hacks, turning real English words into unique and memorable Web addresses.

Picky Domains

Picky Domains is more of a service. Pay them a $50 deposit along with your brief and they will come up with some domain names suggestions. If you see one you like, you register it. If they can’t come up with one you like then you get your money back.

Domain Exposer

Domain Exposer allows you to combine your keyword with other common themed words to help you find the perfect domain name for your site.

Dot-o-mator

Like domainexposer.com, Dot-o-mator combines your keyword with a list of themed words, it then allows you to check that list to see which ones are still available to register.

Domain Fellow

DomainFellow is another site that combines your keyword with a list of themed words, in this case you can specify the order (keyword first or keyword second).

SnapItNow!

SnapItNow! is also a site that combines your keyword with a list of themed words, but in addition to specifying the order, also allows you to test with hyphens between the keywords. Can specify to check for .com and/or .net and/or .org.

DomainTyper

DomainTyper is a simple search tool for checking domain name availability but also provide a domain name generator for cool web 2.0 domain names.

Domain Pigeon

Domain Pigeon generates a list of domain names AND Twitter names. The lists are colour coded to show how many people have clicked on them. If Twitter is important to you, this site will check for availability with both.

Name This

Like pickydomains, NameThis allows you to describe a project or product and receive name suggestions by the Namethis community. The service costs $99.

Well that’s it. I hope you found some great new tools to help you find your next domain name!

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