Are you an Aussie ?
Many Aussies routinely use the ‘Pages from Australia’ button on www.google.com.au because it automatically narrows your search results to Australian websites.

Did you know that if your website is hosted off-shore, it is more likely to be considered an non-Australian site and so get filtered out of the Australian results and so many prospective Australian clients will not find your offerings ?

A number of smaller web hosting businesses resell website hosting from overseas hosting companies so you may inadvertently be using an overseas host without even being aware of it.

Until recently this was a largely unsolvable issue, but recently Google introduced a ‘geographic targeting’ feature for websites that enables your website to be explicitly associated with a country or region for Google searches.

This and other Google-specific website configuration is provided via the Google Webmasters Tools facility; a tool we use to optimise Google performance for client’s sites.

Fortuately this is less of problem now as .com.au domains are automatically recognised as Australian sites, independant of where they are hosted. If you have a website address that is not .com.au you are at risk.

As over 90% of Australian searchers use Google, it is vital your site is optimised for Google if your business targets clients in Australia.

Risk mitigation strategy:

• Check by searching for your website domain (ie www.yoursite.com.au) with the ‘Pages from Australia’ button clicked
• Register your site on Google’s Webmaster facility or have your internet professional arrange it for you.
• Check your host’s geographic location using the geo-location tools at www.hostip.info/

Where has my website gone ?
A frantic business owner contacted me when their website disappeared!

Like all good sales tools, their website was key to their business; and without it they were in danger of loosing customers and sales as a result.

Avoid this potential disaster by simply ensuring that your domain registrar has your current email address.

Your ‘Domain’ or internet address i.e. www.succinctideas.com.au is leased and not owned by you.

If your domain registrar (the company that reserves your domain on your behalf) does not receive a renewal payment (typically every 1 or 2 years), your domain will be decommissioned and your website will cease to operate. 

Worse still, it takes days even after all the administration is sorted out for the internet ‘domain service’ to be updated and until this happens your website is still out of action.

The very worst case scenario is that your domain is released to the public, and someone snaps it up and becomes the new legal owner.

Risk mitigation strategy:

• Ensure your current email address is in your domain record as the administration contact to ensure you receive renewal and other official notices.
  Confirm this with a tool called ‘WHOIS’ accessible at Australian Domain Name Administrator website www.auda.org.au