.gov.au domains list

What is .gov.au TLD

.gov.au is the government‑only namespace within Australia’s .au country‑code top‑level domain, reserved for recognized public authorities across federal, state/territory, and local tiers. In practice, .gov.au domains designate official institutions providing services, publishing policy, and communicating with citizens; .gov.au websites therefore carry strong authenticity expectations. Policy controls operate under the .au framework with additional government eligibility checks, resulting in a closed, verified registry model. From our indexing, we observe stable lifecycles, conservative DNS change rates, and consistent SSL and email‑authentication configurations across agencies. These traits reduce spoofing risk and support dependable service delivery compared with open namespaces, while preserving discoverability through standardized naming conventions. Explore comprehensive .gov.au domain datasets from webatla.

History and key features of .gov.au TLD

Established in the early years of the Australian internet, the .gov.au space evolved alongside the .au ccTLD’s structured second‑level architecture. Key features include restricted eligibility, registrar accreditation under .au policies, and a hierarchical approach that maps institutions to jurisdictions (for example, agency.vic.gov.au). For .gov.au domains, governance emphasizes verifiable ownership, renewal continuity, and consistent contacts; for .gov.au websites, technical baselines typically include TLS by default, modern cipher suites, and widespread SPF/DMARC use. We track adoption of DNSSEC, IPv6, redundancy across authoritative name servers, and the prevalence of long‑lived certificate chains—signals associated with operational maturity. Over time, this combination has produced a relatively low‑churn, resilient namespace with predictable attribution. Explore curated .gov.au domain datasets from webatla today.

Why and who choose the .gov.au domain

Organizations eligible for the .gov.au domain include government departments, statutory authorities, commissions, and local councils. Decision drivers differ from commercial buyers: .gov.au domains signal verified public ownership, while .gov.au websites benefit from consistent naming, policy alignment, and higher baseline security controls shaped by government digital standards. We see procurement rules, interoperability requirements, and citizen trust influencing selection, alongside needs for accessible content, stable uptime, and authenticated email. For risk management, the closed namespace limits impersonation vectors and streamlines takedown workflows across jurisdictions. The outcome is a coherent digital footprint where services, datasets, and contacts are reliably attributable to the state. Explore structured .gov.au domain datasets from webatla for analysis.