dot-au statistics

This page provides some figures for growth of the dot-au space.

It covers -

• introduction
• registrations by 2LD
• graphs
• making sense - interpreting the figures

     introduction

One difficulty in mapping the shape of the dot-au 2LDs is the lack of published official data for the period to 1999 and for some closed 2LDs from 2002/3.

Note that the following figures identify the number of registrations rather than the number of active sites. Some figures are not publicly available.

     registrations by 2LD

In February 2005 auDA announced that the combined number of .com.au and .net.au domain names had reached 500,000.

Comparable figures for dot-nz are here.

     graphs

A range of graphs about the dot-au ccTLD and its 2LDs are here (PDF).

     making sense

What do the statistics mean? Interpretation of trends in dot-au registration is contentious.

Some observers, particular those with a commercial interest (eg some of the more aggressive registrars and resellers) or a libertarian ideology (expressed as opposition to auDA's regulatory activity) have recurrently asserted that -

• "there aren't enough registrations"
• Australia is lagging behind overseas peers in terms of aggregate registrations and thereby becoming less competitive
• Australia has a lower per capita number of registrations, attributed to overly restrictive (even "communist") policies and supposedly inhibiting the national economy.

Others, including the author of this page, question crude use of measures of teledensity, arguing that -

• some restrictions have benefits for the economy and community (eg less cybersquatting)
• there is no evidence that those restrictions have comprehensively prevented legitimate businesses and other entities from gaining registrations
• comparisons with offshore regimes are on occasion disingenuous, as many overseas registrations are in fact held by domainers and that many registrations relate to monetised 'junk' pages (ie a large number of registrations may merely be indicative of low cost and the ease of registration rather than indicative of day by day use on the part of organisations and individuals).

There have not been definitive studies matching the number of businesses (or ACNS and ABNs) to the number of dot-au registrations or the number of discrete sites that are online and used to promote the registrant's organisation or provide a service. Caution is therefore desirable in accepting hyperbole that there aren't enough registrations or indeed aren't enough sites, an echo of rhetoric about "the broadband gap".

It is clear that Australians have embraced the net and that registrations in the major dot-au 2LDs have increased. Uptake of the .id 2LD has been significantly lower than forecast by its promoters, one reason for wariness about calls in 2007 to substantially weaken rules so that the .net 2LD can be marketed as an id-style personal 2LD.

   next page  (dot-au WHOIS)