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SWeCS NEWSLETTER - 17 May 2004
- .com Versus .com.au Domain Names - Which One
Do You Need?
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What's the difference between a .com. and a .com.au name? Basically, a .com.au domain name identifies you as an Australian business. This has a number of advantages if you are targetting Australian Internet users. Probably the most important effect a .com.au domain has is that some search engines filter their results according to where the searcher lives. For example, if you conduct a search on Google, it is clever enough to work out where you are. And when it knows that you live in Australia, it will often make the assumption that you will be more interested in Australian websites, and so it may place Australian websites higher up the search results than international ones. This isn't always the case, but over time you will find that depending on your product, .com.au domains may rank higher in Australia than international domain names. This is important if your market is solely in Australia. What if your market is global? Then a .com may be more appropriate for you. For example, our domain name is a .com domain, because we can and do provide our services worldwide, even though we are an Australian business based in Australia. We want to be recognised as a global Internet business and so we chose the .com domain. Having said that, there is no reason why you can't have both. It is certainly possible to purchase both the .com and the .com.au versions of your domain name and have them both point to the same website. Don't go overboard though. If you purchase too many domain names and have them all providing the same content, this can be seen by many search engines as "spamming", and could possibly penalise you as a result. What about the price difference? There used to be a very big price difference between .com. and .com.au domain names, but in recent years the .com.au domains have dropped significantly in price, so that the difference is no longer so great. Using our prices as an example, a .com domain will cost you $20 per year. A .com.au domain will cost you $40 per year (.com.au domains can only be purchased for 2 year periods, so the cost will actually be $80 for 2 years, plus GST). So the price is no longer a huge issue, and if you are trading in Australia it makes sense to get the .com.au domain name so that you are recognised as an Australian business and get the benefits of it within Australia's search engine market.
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First though, let us clarify that Yahoo provides a number of different search results, some of which aren't free. Yahoo still has it's comprehensive web directory. This is a directory of websites that have all been reviewed by Yahoo's editors, and is accessed by going into the Yahoo directory on their site. There is a fee to be included in this directory of around $500. But when you conduct a search on Yahoo, it doesn't provide results from it's directory first. It shows you their Sponsored and Web Results first. The Sponsored results come from bidding in Overture Australia, and the Web Results come from it's own spidering technology. You are now able to submit your site for free, to have it "spidered" by their webcrawler and added to their listings. You need to become a member of Yahoo first, which is free. To submit your site to Yahoo, visit http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request.
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We provide one-on-one training at your business to teach you how to build your own website. State government funding is also available for small businesses for up to half the cost of this course. With this funding, the course will only cost you $250 (instead of the usual $500). To find out more, visit www.southwestecommerce.com/courseinfo.htm or call us on (08) 9721 1326.
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We now offer a month-by-month Pay Per Click Management Service for $55 a month - no contracts - you choose if and when you want to use the service. This is a service designed to help you list your website in the major search engines through their "Pay Per Click" systems (where you specify how much you wish to pay per visitor). Our service includes:
Any money spent on clicks are extra. You can select how much you wish to pay per month in clicks and we will limit your spending to that amount. For more information visit www.southwestecommerce.com/ppc.htm or call (08) 9721 1326.
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Browse through the SWeCS Ecommerce Library, full of FREE information about getting more out of the Internet. Sections include Web Site Development, Web Site Promotion & Internet Marketing, Online Commerce, Computer & Technical Issues, and Miscellaneous.
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