September 10, 2015
The level of .COM.AU domains continued to grow in August year-over-year, but some other .AU extensions experienced a dip in numbers.
According to AusRegistry's Monthly General Report for August, there were 2,592,448 .COM.AU names by the end of last month, compared to 2,465,984 in August 2014 (growth of 5.13%) and 2,339,144 in August 2013.
.COM.AU domains maintain their attractiveness due to the ongoing level of awareness and trust among Australian consumers; which is due in part to tight registration eligibility criteria.
Another .AU extension to see growth year-over-year in August was .ORG.AU, which increased by 2.73%.
Others in the .AU space all saw year-over-year decreases: .NET.AU was down 1.04%, .ASN.AU down 2.91%, .ID.AU down 2.04% and CGDN's down 8.37%. CGDN stands for Community Geographic Domain Names, a reserved space for names in the format of place.state.au.
Renewals for August were well up on last year - 16.2%. Last month, there were 81,851 domain name renewals compared with 70,442 in August 2014 and 69,505 in August 2013.
In August 2015, the number of accredited registrars was 47, the same level as 2014 and 2013.
AusRegistry's Monthly General Report for August can be viewed here (PDF). AusRegistry manages all current and open second level .AU domain names, including: .COM.AU, .NET.AU, .ID.AU, .ASN.AU and .ORG.AU; plus government (.GOV.AU) and education domains (.EDU.AU). The company does not provide registration services direct to the public.
.AU will turn 30 years old next year and crossed the 3 million domain mark in July this year. Recently, it was proposed Australians should be allowed to register directly under .AU; something not currently possible.
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