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.