George Pongas is the general manager for Aus Registry, AusRegistry is the current registry operator and wholesale provider for all commercial .au (Australia) domain names including .com.au and .net.au, and non commercial domain names .gov.au and edu.au.

He recently posted something on the Aus Registry website with regards to 2013 being a good year for .au domains. He makes mention of the new gtlds at the end of his post and shares the sentiment of many readers here and in the industry as a whole. “In the face of confusion, people will default to something they trust and understand.

By George Pongas

Last year was a memorable one for .au domain name sales with a number of significant auctions and aftermarket deals making headlines.

For the second time in three years, a .au domain name was included in the top four sales for the world’s highest reported domain name sales for country code Top-Level Domains.

Coming in at fourth place in 2013 was cruises.com.au which was sold for $103,400. It was only edged out of third place by pizza.nl (Netherlands) by $100, followed by fotograf.de (Germany) at $117,810 in second place and jobs.ca (Canada) at $450,000 in first place.

This year’s fourth place follows last year’s highest recorded .au sale – hobart.com.au, which sold for $67,600 and ranked 15^th in 2012’s sales chart.

The other .au domain name in this year’s top 30 was mysuper.com.au which came in at 29^th spot with a sale value of $28,691.

This is a terrific result for .au and demonstrates the strong position it has attained on the global stage.

It’s especially significant considering the larger namespaces it’s competing with and the countries with bigger economies. Despite Australia’s relatively small population, the .au namespace is recognised as one of the world’s leading country codes and ranks in the top 10 country code Top-Level Domains globally.

Only recently we reported on the many benefits business owners can attain by registering a premium generic .com.au or .net.au domain names. Our carloans.com.au case study showed how a premium generic domain name helped their business decrease marketing and AdWord spend while increasing revenue and brand awareness.

Clearly, savvy business owners are aware of the .au aftermarket value and are using it to their advantage.

In September 2011, investmentproperty.com.au became the highest recorded domain name at auction when it was snapped up for $125,000 by New South Wales property developer Vision Homes. Only last year, the domain names – sydney.com.au, melbourne.com.au, brisbane.com.au, adelaide.com.au and auction.com.au – were touted for sale with a projected retail price somewhere in the order of $1 million as a total package.

I encourage business owners to contact their Registrar and consider a premium generic .au domain name for their business.

No doubt we’ll see even higher domain name sales in 2014 as the intrinsic value of .au domain names increases.

Although 2014 will see many new options become available in the market, my expectation is that the possible confusion will make premium generic domain names in established namespaces even more valuable.

In the face of confusion, people will default to something they trust and understand.