{"id":10843,"date":"2022-01-31T08:30:15","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T13:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cscdbs.com\/blog\/?p=10843"},"modified":"2022-07-20T09:06:30","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T13:06:30","slug":"au-direct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cscdbs.com\/blog\/au-direct\/","title":{"rendered":".AU Direct is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At CSC, we work exclusively with corporate clients in protecting their brands online. We\u2019re an accredited registrar with the Australian top-level domain registry, auDA, and pleased to be offering our clients the opportunity to secure one of the newest domain extensions\u2014.AU. This new domain space will open up naming opportunities as well as a shorter domain name for the Australian market. This means that businesses will soon be able to register company.au<\/strong> instead of company.com.au<\/strong> as their corporate domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This launch is bringing Australia in line with many other countries that offer top-level domains such as .DE, .FR, and more recently .UK and .NZ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shorter namespace<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Interesting shorter domains will be popular, and they help with branding and name recall, or can be used in URL shorteners for social media marketing and offline media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local appeal<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic has seen communities develop stronger national sentiment and preference for local goods and services. Together with the rise in digitalization and more consumers going online, using a .AU over generic .COM will be seen as more Australian, and yield greater consumer approval and engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brand protection<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the case of .UK, the number of domain disputes rose by over 230%<\/a> after many brand owners failed to register relevant names in the Grandfather Phases, resulting in a high number of third-party registrations. For .AU, existing third-level holders can secure their rights to exact match names on the second-level. This leaves brand owners, in particular, open to more competition for the same namespace, and they should consider securing their rights early. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timeline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Grandfather Phase\u2014priority (Mar 24,2022 \u2013 Sep 20, 2022):<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

During this phase, registrants with an existing third-level .AU domain name will qualify for the matching top-level .AU domain name. The top-level domain will be reserved from registration by other parties. Privacy protection is not allowed for this phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n