Australia is a country located in Oceania, and is a continent between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean.

The internet country code for Australia is the .au, and is a country code top level domain (cctld) that does carry restrictions on registration.

The domain name was originally allocated by Jon Postel, operator of IANA to Kevin Robert Elz of Melbourne University in 1986. After an approximately five year process in the 1990s, the Internet industry created a self regulatory body called .au Domain Administration to operate the domain. It obtained assent from ICANN in 2001, and commenced operating a new competitive regime for domain registration on July 1, 2002. Since this new regime, any registration has to be ordered via a registrar.

It is not possible to register directly in the second level of .au (such as mycompany.au). The naming rules for .au require registrations under second-level categories that describe a type of entity. .com.au, for example, is designed for commercial entities. This follows a similar allocation policy to that used in other countries such as the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Second-level domains

.com.au - A must for every Australian business seeking exposure on the Internet. Period: 2 years. Licence fee: $127.00

.net.au - Commonly used by Australian Technology based companies or businesses Period: 2 years. Licence fee: $127.00

.org.au - Available for registration by "non-commercial organisations". Period: 2 years. Licence fee: $30.00

.edu.au (see Third level domains below)

.gov.au (see Third level domains below)

.csiro.au - CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) The .csiro.au subdomain is managed by CSIRO IT Services and Operations. (hostmaster@csiro.au).

For technical issues relating to this domain, please contact Nick Hocking (Systems Programmer). Administrative issues should be directed to Geoff Morrison (Assistant Manager, Operations). The domain is used exclusively for registration of entities within the CSIRO organisation.

.asn.au - Available for registration by "non-commercial organisations". Period: 2 years. Licence fee: $60.00

.id.au - For personal use by Australian citizens and residents. id.au names cannot be used for commercial purposes. Period: 2 years. Licence fee: $59.00

Third-level domains

The use of .gov.au and .edu.au is also split up into further state-based categories. State governments and schools use a domain name that reflect their locale, and these state-based third-level domains are managed independently by the states.

For example, a school in Western Australia would register schoolname.wa.edu.au, whereas a New South Wales government department would use deptname.nsw.gov.au. Similarly, replacing the bold part of these domains, Victoria would use .vic, Queensland would use .qld, South Australia would use .sa, Tasmania would use .tas, Northern Territory would use .nt and the Australian Capital Territory would use .act.

Tertiary institutions are typically exempt from requiring state-based distinctions. For example Edith Cowan University in Western Australia has a domain address of www.ecu.edu.au rather than www.ecu.wa.edu.au, Monash University in Victoria uses www.monash.edu.au rather than www.monash.vic.edu.au.

Registrations for edu.au can be done through DomainName.edu.au. The Domain licences cost $110 inc GST. The licence period is two years. The licence fee is also payable on renewal of the domain name.

Registrations for gov.au can be done through DomainName.gov.au. $62 will be payable with each 2-year domain name licence registration and renewal.

For a complete list of auDA Accredited Registrars - Click Here!

About the Author

Jennnifer Chiera is the Co President of Extradius Inc., a creative investing company with a focus on domain names & web development. Jennifer is also the webmaster of GlobeDomains.com Blog http://www.globedomains.com, and Domain Bash http://www.domainbash.com