Registering a domain name

[glassngrass]

Hi folks,

I've recently decided that i should have a website. In the meantime, i guess i should be registering a domain name. The question is can i do this without having a registered business name? Long story but basically my business name lapsed a couple of years ago and when i realized this recently it was too late. A business in Queensland has registered in my name. So hopefully it isn't required.

The must be a demonstrable link between the registrant and a domain name if obtaining a .au.
.com.au require either an ABN, or business name registration number to qualify

.com and many others are free for all

[glassngrass]

Interesting topic as I have just registered another business name. I plan in the next 12/18 months to separate my business into lawns only and gardens only and sell off the garden business. I am just going through the process of Trade Marking my first business name, it's taken 8 months, infact the certificate arrived from IP Australia yesterday.
Let me explain. One of my competitors has a google ad with my business name in the title, so every time you google my business his ad comes up above my website on google. How misleading! How unethical!
What can you do about it?, nothing, ACCC won't do anything, ASIC won't do anything, there is no Govt dept in Australia that deals with this sort of thing happening. I write to the owner/competitor and he basically says its tough and he's not taking the ad down. So I write to google and complain to them. They won't do anything because I have no trade mark.
So Now I have the trade mark I can complain to google and get a result.
It costs about $420/$500 to do the trade mark yourself, you do not need a solicitor to do this for you.
Moral of the story even though you have the registered business name you do not own it. The only way to protect it from use by another person is to Trade Mark it.

As a suggestion - consider registering as an additional business name the .com.au variation of your business name.

This can help protect your IP.

[jd]

But you need to have a business AND an ABN to register a .com.au
There are requirements to be met to hold any .au domain name, but .com, .org and other are open slather

Is there any advantage between a com.au or net.au site?

[Bluey]

Not sure. I am not sure if Google gives a higher ranking in its search engine for .com.au sites over .net.au sites.

[seliment]

Interesting topic as I have just registered another business name. ...
So Now I have the trade mark I can complain to google and get a result.
It costs about $420/$500 to do the trade mark yourself, you do not need a solicitor to do this for you.
Moral of the story even though you have the registered business name you do not own it. The only way to protect it from use by another person is to Trade Mark it.

Excellent information.

[fairdinkum]

I think the .com.au is just more recognisable. The first thing that comes to the most of most people when trying to find a website is .com. I don't think it makes any difference with search results. But if you want more chance of catching those who randomly type in your business name in the address bar trying to guess the website address, you should have both. You then just redirect the .net.au to your .com.au domain or vice versa. It costs less than $50 for both for 2 years...a cost that can be recovered in just 1 hit over that 2 year peiod.

[cadase]

Got An email from Ventraip during the week. Looks interesting, having a .lawns or .gardening would be handy

Hi Knucklehead,
New TLD's are here! The internet is about to change forever, with a massive range of new domain name extensions becoming available over the next year.
These extensions, known as newTLD's, are common words such as .wiki, .club, .blue, .ninja, .rehab and .bike, that you can now make a domain name out of. For example, if you were a vet you could have yourname.vet or if you were pretty sure of yourself you could have yourname.***y!
More than 200 of these newTLD's will be released before the end of this year alone, with hundreds more still under review by ICANN.
New TLD's Available Now
This week we've added the following newTLD's that you can order right now from our web site:
• .build
• .luxury
• .wiki
The following newTLD's will be available from our web site next week:
• .menu
• .dance
• .democrat
• .ninja
• .immobilien
• .tattoo
• .***y
• .link
• .gift
• .guitars
• .pics
• .photo
Prices for these newTLD's range from $15.95 per year for .link through to a staggering $599.95 per year for .luxury, making it the most expensive and allegedly the most exclusive domain name on the internet!
Like with all VentraIP Australia domain names, all newTLD's come with free DNS hosting, free URL forwarding and cloaking, and free email forwarding.
New ccTLD's Available Now
We've also added a number of new ccTLD's to our web site which are available to order right now and with no restriction on eligibility:
• .io
• .ag
• .bz
• .lc
• .mn
• .sc
• .vc
Prices for these new ccTLD's start at $29.95 per year.
Every couple of weeks we will email our customers letting them know what newTLD's have been added to our web site and what is coming up, but if you want to stay informed and know as soon as they available please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Kind regards,
Natalie O'Grady
Marketing Co-ordinator

[Bluey]

Very interesting Cadase

[fairdinkum]

Hey Cadase
Here's a couple of interesting articles on domain names.
http://www.score.org/resources/does-...-really-matter
http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain

Personally I can't really see the benefit of these (new TLD's) for business purposes. The thing is that people know .com. Even though it might be cool to have .lawnmowing there's a lot more to type which equals pita on a mobile. And as the first article mentions, .com sites rank a lot better than any other TLD. And it's not because that are favoured by the search engines just for the .com extension. Modern search algorithms don't really work that way from what I can gather. .com rank higher purely because they are more popular and get clicked more often. I wouldn't say don't get one. But I'd say don't get one just for rankings. The extension is not considered a ranking factor as such. But popularity is. And on that alone .com should do a lot better. I hope that makes sense

[jd]

Thanks for those links Jason. A lot of reading to be done.

[glassngrass]

Got An email from Ventraip during the week.

There are some really good domain registrars out there - VentraIP is definitely one of them - I use them myself.

Others I would avoid - like Crazy Domains.

[fairdinkum]

I agree David. I'm also with VentraIP. I'm actually a reseller with them now. They have really good customer support. And they are really up front about any issues. Some of the cheaper registrars and hosting providers have virtually no support and they try and deny any server problems they might have. That other company david mentioned are terrible for that kind of thing.

[PaulG]

I have my domain names with VentraIP too.

[glassngrass]

And for web hosting - I cannot recommend netVirtue highly enough.