Domain Names Rules

Domain Name Rules

Domain Spaces Individual Names

Australian Domain Spaces:

com.au

For commercial entities, such as companies (with ACN as registered through ASIC), and businesses (registered with state governments).
Registration guidelines for com.au may be viewed here.

net.au

For commercial entities (particularly information technology businesses), such as companies (with ACN as registered through ASIC), and businesses (registered with state governments).
Registration guidelines for net.au may be viewed here.

org.au

For charities and non-profit organisations.
Registration guidelines for org.au may be viewed here.

asn.au

For non-commercial organisations such as incorporated associations, political parties, trade unions, sporting and special interest clubs.
Registration guidelines for asn.au may be viewed here.

id.au

For individuals who are Australian citizens or residents.
Registration guidelines for id.au may be viewed here.

Global Domain Spaces ( often called Top Level Domains ):

.com

Originally intended for commercial businesses around the world.

.net

Used by many types of organizations and individuals globally; it was historically intended for and is still commonly used by Internet service providers.

.org

An unrestricted domain space, but was intended to serve the noncommercial community.

.biz

Is restricted to businesses.

.info

An unrestricted domain space for websites containing information about you, your organization, your products or any other information you'd like to make available to a global audience.

Australian Domain Names:
Licences may only be allocated to a registrant who is Australian, and are allocated on a 'first come, first served' basis.
The licence period is fixed at 2 years, and renewal of a licence at the end of that period is dependent on the registrant continuing to meet the eligibility and allocation criteria.
There is no restriction on the number of domain names that may be licensed by a registrant.

Individual Names must:

a) be at least 2 characters long and have less than 63 characters; b) contain only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9) and hyphens (-), or a combination of these; c) start and end with a number or a letter, not a hyphen; and d) not contain hyphens in the third and fourth position (eg. ab--cd.com.au).

Global Domain Names:
Licences are allocated on a 'first come, first served' basis.
The licence period is a minimum of 1 year, but may be longer, to a maximum of 10 years.
There is no restriction on the number of domain names that may be licensed by a registrant.

Individual Names must:

a) be at least 3 characters long and have less than 63 characters; b) contain only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9) and hyphens (-), or a combination of these; c) start and end with a number or a letter, not a hyphen.