Australia has introduced a new shorter domain, .au direct. eg. artful.au instead of artful.com.au. Existing .com.au and .net.au domain owners get first priority to register their domain in the new .au direct format. After the 19th of September all domains are open to the public (and resellers!) to register any available .au direct domain.
If there is anything else you would like to know that we have forgotten to add here, please feel free to give us a call on 1300 278 385 or email us at
Domain name management is where we look after your domain name for you. It is officially registered with the relevant registry but we ensure it is pointed to the correct nameservers and most importantly ensure that it remains yours! We will notify you approximately 30 days prior to it's renewal date, asking you if you still require it and then keep on hounding you until you reply! If a domain is lost, it is often difficult to get back so we do our darndest to get hold of you and pride ourselves in never having lost a domain name in our 20 years in business.
Simple! Just send us an email requesting the domain/s you are after. We can then check whether they are currently available and register them for you. We may even have a look for other possibilities for you too and send you a list.
We often suggest you consider registering a few domain names, depending on what you are wanting to achieve with it.
If Google Search is a priority for you we would suggest you not only register a domain name that includes your business name but also one that is heavy with your chosen search phrases. Eg. we have artful.com.au but also some more Google friendly ones too such as managedjoomlahosting.com.au.
We also have the equivalent names with different TLD's. (.com, .net. .net.au etc). Doing this is more of an insurance policy against anyone else registering them and imitating your business. Once someone else has them your change of retrieving them are next to none.
You will find if you do some research that domain names range in price from $25 to $2000! Just like when you get quotes for selling your house, we would suggest you choose a domain provider that charges somewhere in the middle! Too cheap often means you don't receive management associated with your domain so there is a risk that you will not be notified of the renewal and you may lose it. With these providers if your email address changes and you don't respond to a renewal request they will not chase you, they will just let it drop. Artful will use everything within their power to find you before we could let that happen.
Too expensive usually means baddies have immorally, and often illegally, purchased a whole heap of domains in order to sell them to the highest bidder! Avoid these at all costs too!
Artful charges $59 every two years to manage any .au domains (eg .com.au or .net.au) and $49 every two years for non Australian generic Top-Level (gTLD) domains (eg. .com or .net). Other TLDs (Top-Level Domains) like .melbourne, .nz, .aisa and .coffee etc are often individually priced so you would need to ask us specifically for pricing of those.
Though PHP 7.4 is currently handling your website, the software is becoming obsolete and will no longer receive official security updates by it's developers into 2023. There is a strong recommendation from the developers of Joomla and Wordpress platforms that websites are upgraded as soon as possible to run on PHP 8.0 and later 8.1
For your website to stay secure you need to upgrade. The unpredictable nature of this switchover due to the varying elements in your individual website is a challenge. However, Artful has robust practices in place to limit the negative impact on your website.
If you are ready for us to begin the process up upgrading your website to PHP 8 please send an email to
No, but you can if you like. We pride ourselves on giving you the keys to your whole website kingdom once the site is complete. Even providing you with training to help you update your site yourself. We are also available on the phone or by email if you have forgotten how and will help walk you through the process. For the most part you should be able to update a lot of things yourself, however if there is a structural change you require, we do suggest you consider coming back to us to ensure your site maintains its integrity. Or if you find that you would prefer to leave web design to the web design experts and concentrate on doing what you do best, feel free to contact us for any change required. We charge for updates at our regular hourly rate.