Australian Geo Domains
Every few months I check out the major Australian geo domains to see if any have been further developed.
It’s always surprised me none of the capital city domains have been properly developed or acquired by major media companies.
The majority of capital city names are split between 2 registrants, Boomerang and Web Wombat.
Melbourne.com.au - Web Wombat - Probably the most developed of all their capital city names, but no where near on par with .com geos
Sydney.com.au - Web Wombat - In a similar stage of development to Melbourne.com.au, easily one of the most valuable .com.au names, it could be so much better.
Adelaide.com.au - Web Wombat - Less developed than their other geos and in desperate need of a redesign.
Brisbane.com.au - Web Wombat - Same issues as adelaide.com.au
It also surprises me all of these names only resolve if you type in www. in front of the name, sydney.com.au without the www does not work, likewise for the others. This seems to be fairly common in Australia, hosting companies that cant setup their clients domains properly. Their traffic would likely double if they fixed this. Does anyone still type in www in front of everything anymore?
Darwin.com.au, Perth.com.au, Canberra.com.au - Boomerang - All three are basically custom parking pages, however I’ve noticed some of Boomerang’s other domains have evolved into content rich websites, I’m assuming their geo domains will receive the same treatment shortly, on the plus side their names do resolve without the www.
Hobart.com.au - Net Fleet - Picked up in the recent auDA geo release, currently a small adsense site and listed for sale on NetFleet’s site, current bid is $15k.
Some of the major regional domains are owned by the same companies, however Goldcoast.com.au and Cairns.com.au have been acquired by News Corp and are now highly trafficked websites.
So we’ve established there is not a lot going on with the .au names, lets look over at the .com’s.
Melbourne.com - Currently parked, sold for $800kUS last year to Kevin Ham from HitFarm
Sydney.com - Owned by Tourism NSW, what a great domain for them, I assume it would’ve been privately acquired.
Adelaide.com -Owned by Joyce Russ Advertising, they were also the previous owner of brisbane.com and possibly some of the other .com geos sold to Kevin Ham. The site has recently been developed, although seems to be lacking content.
Brisbane.com - Sold at the same time as Melbourne.com for only $100kUS, again to Kevin Ham from HitFarm
interesting to see there was previously a WIPO decision on brisbane.com
Perth.com - Sold for $200kUS, again to Kevin Ham from HitFarm
Darwin.com - Does not resolve
Hobart.com & Canberra.com - Developed websites for companies of the same name, no connection to the Australian city names.
Kevin Ham owns vancouver.com and has recently developed it, perhaps he will do the same with his Australian city names.
In my opinion the .com.au version of these capital city names are probably worth more than the .com equivalents. It will be interesting to continue watching these names, particularly with the secondary market now open, perhaps we’ll see a 6 or 7 figure sale price on one of them.
The registration of all state names, full or abbreviated is currently restriced by auDA, including the following:
wa.com.au, westernaustralia.com.au, sa.com.au, southaustralia.com.au, nt.com.au, northernterritory.com.au, qld.com.au, queensland.com.au, vic.com.au, victoria.com.au, nsw.com.au, newsouthwales.com.au, act.com.au, australiancapitalterritory.com.au, tas.com.au, and tasmania.com.au.
I’m surprised after all this time they have not been auctioned off or allocated to the corresponding state governments, there would be a lot of traffic going to waste every day and a lot of frustrated users.
Ultimately I think geo domains are some of the most appealing to develop, although also the most challenging, which is likely why we’ve seen so little activity locally.
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2 Responses to “Australian Geo Domains”
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Interesting. I’m sure Kevin Ham will develop melbourne.com at some stage.
vancouver.com was developed and came out of beta pretty quickly after he brought that name..
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