.nz Domains: D-Day for registrations and reservations

If you haven’t already registered or reserved the .nz variant of your domain name, you’ll need to act fast.

At 1pm today, preferential registration or reservation ends for those already owning a .co.nz, .net.nz, .org.nz or other third-level domain name. After that time, anyone can reserve yourdomainname.nz.

Eligibility for a .nz domain name depends on what existing third level domains you own, when you bought it and whether anyone else has a third level domain name.

You can reserve rather than register your .nz domain name, at no cost. However, if you do not register it by September 30 2016 it then becomes available to anyone.

To find out your status and register or reserve a .nz domain name, contact your Registrar or domain name provider or go to anyname.nz. But hurry.

Why should you care?

Last week Taylor Swift bought TaylorSwift.porn and TaylorSwift.adult; Microsoft bought Office.adult and Office.porn. Clearly they did so to protect their individual and corporate brands.

For the same reason, while .co.nz will likely remain the more valuable domain, NZ businesses may also want to stop someone else grabbing a .nz version of their company website.

Domain name ownership disputes can, however, still be referred to the Domain Name Commission’s Dispute Resolution Service. And, according to Penny Catley and Kate Giddens of intellectual property patent attorney firm Baldwins, companies do not need to defensively register the .nz domain if their brand is properly protected by trade mark registration.

Other search marketing news this week:

• Google tests targeted TV ad service
• Google mobile-friendly algorithm – more details
• Bing only showing one page of search results – maybe

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