Whois AU
Click here to find out information about who the registrar and registrant are for Australian domain names. Australian domain names end in .au and can usually only be registered by Australian businesses, companies, organisations and government departments.
Type in the domain name with extension and you will get registration information for the Australian domain name that you have entered.
Whois for .com
click here to find out the domain name information. You must put in the domain name extension in your whois search.
Why register an Australian domain name
Many businesses use a .com.au because it is easier for people to remember. They also choose to register both a .com and .com.au , so that people who inadvertently forget to type the .au will be redirected automatically to the correct website.
Although Australian domain names have strict eligibility requirements, a situation could arise where another party may register a domain name closely associated with your company. Registering a domain name prevents it from being registered by someone else and much cheaper than hiring a lawyer.
Lastly, if you host your website outside of Australia, you will not appear in local search results for google.com.au, yahoo.com.au and ninemsn.com . If you want to appear in local search results, you need to register an Australian domain name.
Just because you host with an Australian hosting company does not mean that your website is hosted in Australia
To find out where your website will be hosted, you will need to ask the hosting company, "where are your servers located ? Are you web servers located in Australia?".
To verify that your site is hosted in Australia, go to www.dnsstuff.com and put the URL in the traceroute tool. It will tell you where you site is being hosted.