Most businesses only require a single domain name to use for their website, email, etc.; and for Australian businesses, it's best for that domain name to be a .com.au.
However, there can be some benefits to registering additional domain names, especially the equivalent .au and .com versions of your main .com.au domain. Those include:
- Brand protection, to prevent a competitor registering a
.auor.comversion of your business name. A nefarious competitor might do this to redirect the domain to their own website; catch emails sent to the wrong domain; put up a defamatory website; or send fake emails pretending to come from you with a confusingly similar domain name. If you have a trademark, you can always force someone to take down any such activity; but that takes time and money. And very few businesses are targeted by their competitors in this way, so it's a low risk. - Having a short version of your domain name, which can be easier for people to type when displayed on advertising materials, or for setting up "short links" such as
example.au/payfor a link to an online payment platform.
A common misconception is that owning additional domain names can help with search engine rankings. This is not the case, as search engines will only use the main domain name associated with your website. You would need to build additional websites for other domain names in order for there to be any search engine benefit.
