June 26, 2014
Australian domain name registrations are increasing and consumer trust in the extension remains solid.
A survey carried out for AusRegistry and .au Domain Administration (auDA) has found of more than 3,000 Australians polled, 76% of all domain name holders choose a .AU domain name, an increase of 2% on last year.
The number of females holding domain names has also substantially increased from 16% in 2013 to 22% this year.
50% of domain holders choose AU as it's the most popular domain type in Australia, 66% as it best represents Australian organisations and 33% as the extension is regulated and trusted.
The majority of respondents holding .au domain names said they found the registration process easy and while there are a number of criteria that must be met for registration, the majority also felt there is the right amount of regulation in the .AU namespace.
An important finding to emerge from the survey was that .AU domains enjoy more than double the level of consumer trust over any other extension.
"Two-thirds of survey respondents are more likely to trust a .au website compared with only one-third for a .com," said George Pongas, General Manager of Naming Services at AusRegistry; the registry operator for all Australian top level domains.
In May 2014 the combined total of registered .au domains reached 2,828,193. The report states excluding Tokelau's ccTLD (country code Top Level Domain), which is provided free (but has some challenges as a result), .AU is ranked the ninth largest globally out of 283 ccTLD extensions.
The 2014 survey ran for approximately 1 month and resulted in 3,018 responses - 2,748 General respondents (88.1%) and 370 Industry respondents (11.9%). The gender split had the ladies in front - with 1,569 females (50.3%) compared to 1,549 males (49.7%).
The 2014 .AU Survey : Understanding the Australian Internet User can be downloaded here (PDF).
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