How to choose a domain name for your business

Choose a name a stranger can type after hearing it once, that matches the business name you register, and that ends in .com.au if your customers are in Australia. Then check it against the trade marks register before you print a single business card, and register the .au alongside it.

That is the whole method. The rest of this page is how to do each step well, and what to do when the name you want is already taken.

Start with the radio test

Say the name aloud once, to someone who has never heard it, and ask them to type it. If they type it correctly, it passes. If they ask "how do you spell that?", it fails.

This matters more than it sounds. Many new customers will hear your name before they see it: from a neighbour, a vet, a radio ad, a phone call. Anyone who has to ask how to spell it may give up, or land on a competitor.

The usual ways a name fails:

• Numbers. "Paws 4 Suds" could be paws4suds, pawsforsuds or pawsfoursuds. You would need to own all three and still explain it on every call.
• Hyphens. Nobody says "hyphen" out loud, so people drop it. The hyphenated name sends them to whoever owns the plain one.
• Creative spelling. Kwik, Kleen, Xpress. You will spend years saying "with a K".
• Doubled letters at the join. When one word ends with the letter the next one starts with, people drop one. "Bark Kart" becomes barkkart, which many people will type as barkart or barkcart.
• Words that run together badly. Written without spaces, some names read as something else. Paws on Wheels becomes pawsonwheels, which can read as "paw son wheels". Type your name in lower case with no spaces and read it cold.

Shorter is easier, but clear beats short. A 15-letter name made of plain words passes the radio test; a 6-letter invented word usually does not.

business.gov.au gives the same advice in fewer words: pick a name that is short, easy to remember, pronounce and spell, and unique.

Match it to the business name you register

For a .com.au, the name is not a free choice. auDA, which administers the .au domain, says "your com.au domain name needs to have a connection to your business", and you need to be an Australian commercial entity. The most common way to qualify is an active ABN or ACN, which a sole trader with an ABN has.

Under the current .au Licensing Rules (rule 2.4.4), that connection can be:

• a match of your company, business or personal name;
• an acronym of one of those names;
• a match of your Australian trade mark;
• a match or acronym of a related company, or of a partnership you are a partner in or a trust you are trustee of;
• a match or synonym of the name of a service, goods, event, activity or premises you provide.

"Match" means the domain uses some or all of the words in your name, in the same order, with no words added. So if your registered business name is "Geelong Pooch Van", then geelongpoochvan.com.au and poochvan.com.au both qualify.

You may have read about a "close and substantial connection" rule. That came from auDA's older policy, which has not applied to new registrations since 12 April 2021 and expired altogether on 11 April 2026. The current rules do not use the phrase for .com.au; the list above is what applies now.

The rule may tighten

In August 2026 auDA's Board approved a panel's recommendations in principle, including removing the last item on that list: qualifying through the name of a service, goods, event, activity or premises. auDA says no changes have been finalised, any change will go to public consultation first, and it will come with guidance and transition arrangements.

What that means for you today: do not rely on "it describes what I do". Register the business name with ASIC first, then register the domain that matches it. That route qualifies under the current rules, and auDA says it expects many registrants with a matching company name, business name or trade mark to meet the proposed requirements too.

On whether you must register a business name at all: ASIC says you must register one if you run a business in Australia and are not trading under your own name. A sole trader trading as "Jane Smith" does not need one, but then janesmith.com.au is the domain that matches.

.com.au, .au or .com: decide by who your customers are

If your customers are in Australia, use .com.au. Most Australian businesses use .com.au, so it is what customers expect, and the .au tells them you are located here.

The plain .au (auDA calls it ".au direct") is the newest and shortest option. It is open to anyone with a validated connection to Australia, and the name does not have to match your business name. That makes it easier to get, which is exactly why you should take yours before somebody else does (more on that below).

A .com makes sense when most of your customers are overseas, or when you plan to be. A local trade business rarely needs one. If you sell nationally from Australia, .com.au is still the default.

Check trade marks before you fall in love

ASIC tells you to check your proposed business name does not use trademarked words or expressions before you register it. Do the same for the domain.

IP Australia runs two tools for this:

• Australian Trade Mark Search, which contains details of registered and pending trade marks and the goods and services each one covers.
• TM Checker, a free tool that helps you judge whether your own trade mark application is likely to run into problems.

Search the words in your name, not just the exact phrase, and look at what each mark covers. A "Pooch Van" mark for pet food is a different risk from one for dog grooming. If anything close turns up in your trade, choose again now: renaming after the van is painted costs far more.

A quick first pass on the business names register is also worth doing. Dotto's business name check searches a copy of ASIC's register for identical and similar names.

When the obvious name is taken

Variations that usually work:

• Add your town or region. geelongpoochvan instead of poochvan. Local customers often search with the place name too.
• Add what you do. poochvangrooming. Longer, but it still passes the radio test.
• Take the .au if only the .com.au is gone, but only if the .com.au holder is not in your trade. Otherwise your customers' emails and visits will drift to them.

Variations that usually fail:

• Adding a hyphen, a number, "the", "my" or "online" to a name someone else owns. Customers type the version they remember, which is the other one.
• Misspelling a taken name. You are building a business on a typo.
• Any variation of a name that is somebody's trade mark or a competitor's business name.

Buying the name from its holder

A taken name is not always a dead end. A registered name with no website on it may belong to someone who would sell.

Look the name up on auDA's WHOIS tool. It shows the registrant's legal name, their registrar, and a contact email that is public so people can get in touch about the domain. Write briefly, say what you would use it for, and ask whether they would consider selling.

If you agree a price, the handover is a "change of registrant". It starts with the holder's domain provider; both of you must be eligible to hold the name on the day of transfer; you enter a new licence agreement and pay the licence fee. For a .com.au, that means the domain must connect to your business under rule 2.4.4, the same as for a new registration. Do not pay a stranger directly before the transfer is done: use an escrow service that releases the money only once the name is yours.

Names that holders have already listed for sale, with the asking price shown, are on Dotto's domain listings.

Register both the .com.au and the .au

auDA says you do not have to register both, but that it can be a good idea to register the matching name as a brand protection measure, with your provider redirecting one to the other. You must meet the eligibility rules for each name separately.

Do it on the same day. Pick the one you will print (usually the .com.au) and point the other at it. You can register a .com.au for one to five years at a time, though not every provider offers five-year terms. Set both to auto-renew with a card that will not expire before they do.

A worked example: a mobile dog groomer in Geelong

Sam runs a mobile dog grooming van around Geelong and the Bellarine as a sole trader with an ABN. Sam has three candidates.

Paws 4 Suds is warm and memorable, and it would be fine on the side of the van. Out loud it is three spellings. Sam would need to buy all three and still spell it on every booking call. Out.

Bark Kart is the cleverest of the three and the worst on the phone. The double k disappears, and many people will hear "Kart" as "cart". Out.

Geelong Pooch Van is 15 letters, but every one is a plain word that people spell the same way. It tells a customer what Sam does and where. Its weakness is the place name: if Sam later adds a second van in Ballarat, the name will feel local. For a one-van business whose customers all live within a 30-minute drive, that is a fair trade.

So Sam:

When we checked auDA's WHOIS on 20 October 2026, none of the three .com.au names, nor geelongpoochvan.au, was registered. That can change any day, which is the last lesson: once you have decided, register the same afternoon.