Aus Registry the organization that oversees the Australian country code, put out their Behind The Dot report, which took a look back at 2014 and conducted a survey of over 3,000 participants.
The report looks at a lot of areas from stats and research, to search and the benefits of exact match domains (EMD). There is an interview with an SEO specialist.
One of the findings related to search had to deal with how marketers were telling people to search for them. From the report:
Perhaps it was the change in the SEO landscape that prompted a number of marketers to attempt new ways to navigate users to websites. The ‘term ‘search for us’ is an emerging trend on print and TV ads in Australia. However the mystery remains as to why Marketers would risk sending likely customers into a rabbit warren to search amongst their competitors and hopefully arrive at the correct destination. Wouldn’t direct navigation be simpler?
Recent studies show that the majority of website traffic originates from organic search. Conductor, a company that provides web presence solutions, reports that organic search is responsible for 64% of web traffic (Source:http://www.conductor.com/blog/2014/07/update-organic-search-actually-
responsible-64-web-traffic/).
When it comes to usage
Usage of domain names is clearly dominated by business websites, followed by email purposes, however it is assumed the majority of respondents with a business website will have email attached. In contrast approximately 9% of respondents with a domain were using at least some of their names for
SEO or re-direct purposes and 6% had monetised their names.
Aftermarket
Australia’s Domain Aftermarket is alive and well with a number of .au Registrars partaking in domain sales and auctions.
These companies include: www.netfleet.com.au, www.drop.com.au, www.fabulousdomains.com.au, www.domainmarketplace.com.au, and www.domainshield.com.au.
Mark Lye, CEO and co-founder of Netfleet, a leading platform for .au domain name trading, shared the following insight into the current .au aftermarket.
Demand for .au domains has increased over the past 18 months and prices have definitely increased. In the last 3-6 months exact match domains are ranking higher, which is probably why there has been higher demand. In advertising, for instance with Google Adwords, you cannot beat an exact match domain to lure people, to get them to click. Exact match domains are authoritative and logical.