The Catholic Enquiry Centre is New Zealand’s first Catholic organisation to adopt the new .nz domain name.
Until yesterday the Catholic Enquiry Centre’s virtual home was catholicenquiry.org.nz however from around 1:15pm yesterday the New Zealand Catholic Enquiry Centre can be reached at www.catholicenquiry.nz.
“It’s a positive way to brand the Centre”, Catholic Enquiry Centre Director, Fr Allan Jones SM told CathNews.
“When you think about it, we’re clearly not a .co.nz, nor a .net.nz, and while from among the choices the .org.nz was the best fit for us, we’re really not an organisation either”, he said.
“We’re simply the Catholic Enquiry Centre in New Zealand and so www.catholicenquiry.nz is the best fit.”
At 1pm Tuesday 30 September, the New Zealand Domain Name Commission (DNC) made third-level domain names optional, giving New Zealanders the choice to either register .co.nz, .org.nz, .net.nz or simply register .nz at the second-level.
Many other countries have already made this change.
Those in New Zealand with existing names have until 1pm, 30 March 2015 to stake a claim on their .nz equivalent.
In cases where several groups want the same .nz domain, the DNC has established mediation process. If mediation is unsuccessful it could mean the .nz second-level domain remains unallocated.
Fr John Murphy of Church Resources, who manages a number of domains for various Church organisations, told CathNews that The Catholic Enquiry Centre’s application was actually very straight-forward.
“The Centre pre-registered early and didn’t have any other competition for the name.”
“They’ve also actually been pretty smart and have both spellings “inquiry” and “enquiry” for the Centre”, he said.
Launched 53 years ago, the Catholic Enquiry Centre is modernising its communications, reaching out to new New Zealanders, beyond the Church walls and in ways modern society uses.
“Our television and internet advertising is very successful”, Fr Jones said.
“Getting the .nz domain name just makes sense”.