It's not unusual for domain registrars to offer promotional discounts to encourage the registration of new domains, but the wholesale price usually sets a floor on price reductions.

In what is, as far as we are aware, an industry first, .au registry operator AusRegistry is working with selected registrars to run a $1 sale of .net.au domains during May.

AusRegistry is reducing the wholesale price of .net.au domains to $1 including GST (usually $18) on the proviso that participating registrars offer that price to their customers.

The idea is presumably to reap profits from renewals in subsequent years, so it makes sense to check registrars' normal pricing to avoid the need to transfer the domain before renewing at the full price.

The sale is "a really good opportunity" to obtain a good domain name, AusRegistry public relations manager Michael Korjen told iTWire.

Approximately 300,000 .net.au domains have been registered, which is just over 10% of all .au registrations.

This means businesses that missed out on getting an exactly matching .com.au domain have a chance of obtaining the name they really wanted in the .net.au space.

But .net.au is not a free-for-all. The second-level domain is subject to the same rules as .com.au in terms of who is entitled to register a name, and names must be either "an exact match, abbreviation or acronym of the registrant’s name or trademark; or... otherwise closely and substantially connected to the registrant".

"We know there are many businesses that miss out on securing their preferred choice under com.au," said AusRegistry general manager of naming services George Pongas.

"With greater availability in net.au, businesses are likely to get the domain name they want and can even supplement it with generic word domain names related to their industry or market vertical."

The participating registries are AU Web Address Registration, Cheaper Domains, DomainShield, GoDaddy, Instra, IntaServe, Melbourne IT, Net Logistics, Netregistry, Ventraip, and Ziphosting.