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Guide 8. What do I need for my website?

Domain names (screen 6 of 7)

Most ISPs will give you around 5MB on their server at no additional charge when you sign up with them for an access account. In this case the address for your site will reflect their name. An address such as http://www.ispname.com.au/~yourname is typical.

For an additional fee you can register your own site name, and then have a Web address that looks like http: //www.yourname.com.au/.

Most ISPs usually charge you a little extra for maintaining your own domain name on their server. Of course, if you are using your own server then you need only pay the domain name registration fee. Either way, by paying a little extra you will have a much more prestigious and easily remembered address which you can take with you to another server at any time.

Thereafter everyone who's bookmarked your site will always be able to find you, and every other hotlink to your site's welcome screen will always work no matter where you might move to or how many times you rebuild your site. You'll also have a permanently stable URL you can distribute widely on business cards, letterheads and other promotional material.

This is rapidly becoming a best practice principle of doing business on the Internet, and many users will consider your organisation unworthy of a visit unless you have a unique domain name(1).

Domain name redirection

If that isn't an option for some reason, then you might consider a URL redirection service. This provides you with a stable URL and the redirection service redirects users to your website no matter where it's hosted. One such company offers URLs such as http://welcome.to/ or http://travel.to/, so your URL might be http://welcome.to/gallery/.

What is a domain name

If you don't understand domain names, why we need them and how they function, read the article Domain Name System (DNS) Explained(2).

You might want to look again at how URLs(3) (a URL is the Internet address of a website) are structured.  

Choosing a domain name, and trademarking

At an early stage, when you think you have chosen a name for your organisation and/or website, check and see if a service of the same or similar name already exists online.

Make sure you check different domains and countries. If you find one check their site carefully to see if any part of the name or logo is trademarked. Trademarking a name and logo in Australia, which is fairly straightforward and relatively inexpensive, will help to protect you against others using your logo or trademark.

More information can be found at IPAustralia(4), which can also help you check internationally for any name you want to use.

There are domain name checkers(5) that will determine whether the name you want has already been used, either in Australia or internationally.

If you do have a name that is important to you and has not already been taken, you should consider getting legal advice about trademarking it.

Buying an Australian domain name

If you are going to purchase a com.au domain, you will need to visit a domain name Registrar, such as Melbourne IT (6). There is a fee involved in purchasing a domain name. If you have an ISP, the ISP can handle the purchase for you.

Providing some conditions are met, domain names are issued on a first-come, first-served basis, so you may find that the domain name you want is already taken.

The structure of the .au domain space is described as follows at the Internet Names Australia website:

• .au Delegated country name space for Australia.
  • .com.au Subdomain for commercial entities.
  • .edu.au Subdomain for educational institutions.
  • .gov.au Subdomain for government and semi-government entities.
  • .org.au Subdomain for various forms of affiliation groups.
  • .id.au Subdomain for individual zones.
  • .oz.au Subdomain for entities which are visible within the ACSnet domain.
  • .info.au Subdomain for major Australian information and service resources.
  • .net.au Subdomain for network infrastructure and providers.
  • .asn.au Subdomain for associations.
  • .csiro.au Subdomain for CSIRO.
  • .telememo.au Subdomain for naming X.400 entities registered within the "/C=AU/ADMD=Telememo" administrative domain.
  • .conf.au Subdomain for conferences and exhibitions requiring short duration Internet connectivity.

How should I structure my domain name

You should make your domain name as simple and descriptive as possible so users can find you easily and remember your URL without having to look it up. Always use all lowercase. For example:

• Australian Broadcasting Corporation http://www.abc.net.au/ (7)
• National Gallery of Australia http://www.nga.gov.au/ (8)
• Australian Copyright Council http://www.copyright.org.au/ (9)
• Australian Film Commission http://www.afc.gov.au/ (10)

Web users are now familiar with that format, so if they are looking for your website they are likely - first - to try the obvious Internet address. So, if you're a commercial gallery called Melbourne Gallery for example, users might try website addresses like:

• http://www.mg.com.au/ or
• http://www.melbgallery.com.au/ or
• http://www.melbournegallery.com.au/.

Buying a domain name in a country other than Australia

If your preferred name is already taken you might want to purchase it in countries other than Australia(11) - or you might want to buy it anyway so no-one else can piggyback on your branding. Recently, AltaVista reportedly paid an American businessman over $US3m dollars to buy 'back' the domain name 'altavista.com', which the businessman had purchased a few years earlier.

If you are a global enterprise it may be worthwhile purchasing the same domain name in your expected major markets.

Each country has a separate domain, so you probably can't afford to buy them all, but you may want to judiciously purchase one in the USA and the UK, if that's where you expect to do most of your business outside Australia.

 

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References

1. Domain Registration Services http://www.domainregistration.com.au/domains/
2. 'Domain Name System (DNS) Explained' http://powerraq.com/dns.explained.pdf
3. Guide 3, screen 4 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g3/s4.htm
4. IPAustralia http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/
5. Network Solutions http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml
6. Melbourne IThttp://www.melbourneit.com.au/register/
7. Australian Broadcasting Corporation http://www.abc.net.au/
8. National Gallery of Australia http://www.nga.gov.au/
9. Australian Copyright Council http://www.copyright.org.au/
10. Australian Film Commission http://www.afc.gov.au/
11. Registering in countries other than Australia http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/domreg-alpha.html

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