Today’s the day. You’re finally going to take the next step, get your Australian business online and to do this you’ve made the decision to buy an Australian domain name. Wait a minute though…why are there multiple domain names all targeting Australia? Shouldn’t there only be .com.au domain names? What’s the difference between .com.au and .net.au? Which one should I choose?
If you’re a newbie when it comes to the world of domain names, you’ve probably received decision paralysis after performing a domain availability check with your favourite domain registrar. How can you not when there are over 1000+ different top-level domains (TLDs)?
Most domain registrars will only show domains relevant to you during your search so if you’re in Australia, you should only be shown Australian domains or generic domains like .com or .online. Even still, Australia does have six unique .au related domain extensions so it can still be rather confusing which domain will work best for your needs.
These are the six Aussie domains available to the public:
- .com.au – Used by businesses
- .net.au – Used by businesses
- .org.au – Used by non-profit organisations
- .asn.au – Used by special bodies like trade unions and sporting entities
- .id.au – Used by individuals
- .au – Used by anyone
As you can see, most of the domains do have their own unique, intended usages but two appear to share the same audience. Both .com.au and .net.au are intended to be used for Australian business purposes.
On the surface, .com.au and .net.au are pretty much the same domain so if you’re choosing between them, you can’t really go wrong with either. Both target the same audience, both should have plenty of good domains still available, pricing should be very similar, both have good SEO benefits in Australia and each domain has applicable domain requirements. Having said that, there are subtle differences so let’s delve more in-depth into the .com.au vs .net.au topic.
Quick side note. If you’re also considering .au domains or .com domains as options then please check out our .com.au vs .au and .com vs .com.au articles.
What Audiences Do .com.au and .net.au Reach?
As mentioned above, both .com.au and .net.au are designed to be used by Australian businesses, to reach an Australian audience. There’s literally no difference between them. Even auDA, who is the governing body of all Australian domain names, displays the same description alongside each domain on their domain name page.
The only solid argument you could make that they’re different is that ‘com’ and ‘net’ have different intended usages. The original purpose for .com websites was for commercial reasons and .net websites for network reasons. You’re going back to the wild west of the internet in the 1980s for these definitions to have any proper meaning though as these days, .com and .net are seen as normal websites that could have anything on them.
In short, if you’re a business and want to reach an Australian audience, .com.au and .net.au are both good choices. From a branding perspective, I would go with .com.au simply because it’s more popular so there’s probably more built-in trust when you see a website using .com.au.
Will Domain Availability Be an Issue for .com.au or .net.au?
A very big positive that .net.au domains have over .com.au domains is that you’re going to have a much better chance registering your preferred domain name using a .net.au vs .com.au.
As of this article’s publishing date, there are 212,000 .net.au domains registered versus 3,100,00 for .com.au.
When .net.au accounts for less than 10% of the .com.au total domain registrations, you’ll have a much easier time registering the perfect .net.au domain vs .com.au. If you’re trying to register an exact match of your business name, you shouldn’t run into issues trying to register either domain but if you’re looking to use something more generic, you might have issues registering the .com.au version.
.com.au vs .net.au SEO
Both domains are treated as Australian domains within search engines like Google so for SEO purposes, .com.au and .net.au should give you the same number of rankings benefits in Australian search engines as each other.
There is a possibility that maybe .com.au will lead to better rankings because maybe people trust .com.au more than .net.au and maybe that will lead to more clicks within a search engine, which maybe will lead to a better click-through-rate (CTR) and thus maybe lead to better organic rankings but judging by the number of times I used the word maybe in this sentence, this isn’t something that can be conclusively used as a positive in favour of .com.au vs .net.au.
Is There a Price Difference Between .com.au And .net.au?
Both domains are priced very reasonably with most domain registrars offering .com.au and .net.au for roughly the same price, which is in the range of $12 AUD to $20 AUD per year.
For OnlyDomains specifically, we currently charge $14.99 AUD for .com.au domain registrations and $16.99 AUD for .net.au domain registrations. Whilst .com.au is a bit lower, it’s not a massive difference so this shouldn’t be a factor in whether you opt to choose .com.au over .net.au.
Each domain also comes with the same number of benefits, such as free business email trials, 24-hour customer support and free DNS hosting.
Does .com.au or .net.au Have Any Domain Requirements?
Boy, do they ever! If you’ve ever tried to register an Australian domain before, you’ve no doubt been frustrated by the amount of special details you need to supply to register one.
We provide an in-depth analysis of the .com.au domain requirements in our how to get a .com.au domain without an ABN article but the short version of that article is that if you want to register a .com.au domain, your best chance is to have access to an Australian Business Number (ABN), either in your personal name as a sole trader or as a company name.
The same requirement is applicable for .net.au too as they share the exact same restrictions.
The Final .com.au vs .net.au Showdown
To finish up, let’s look at how each domain stacks up side-by-side in each of the above categories:
| .com.au | .net.au | |
| Registration Price (excl GST at OnlyDomains) |
$14.99 AUD | $16.99 AUD |
| Audience | Australian Users | Australia Users |
| Availability | Somewhat Limited | Not Limited |
| Popularity | Very popular | Somewhat popular |
| SEO | Benefits in Australia | Benefits in Australia |
| Eligibility | ABN Holders | ABN Holders |
When formatted in a nice little table, it drives home the fact that both .com.au and .net.au are extremely similar.
An indisputable fact though is that .com.au domain name is still considered the primary domain for Australia so for that reason alone, it should always be the first domain you consider if you’re looking to target an Australian audience.
If your preferred .com.au isn’t available though, resorting to a .net.au domain isn’t some kind of constellation prize as it’s still a very good domain, one that is used by massive Australian websites like abc.net.au.
In the end, you can’t go wrong with either .com.au or .net.au.
