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Frequently Asked Questions
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MD is located in South Yarra, a leafy suburb in the heart of Melbourne. We also have a satellite office in the UK. Our local and friendly support staff are on hand to answer your call most hours of the day. Unlike some other webhosting companies, the person on the other end of the line is guaranteed to be locally employed. We also provide 24/7 ticket support!
MD sells domain names and web hosting by volume and automation, which allows us to make web hosting affordable and accessible to everyone. Our prices and packages have been designed to compete in the global market place. We also provide powerful web based tools that our customers to manage their own accounts at the click of a mouse, just like a web professional.
More information about our server specifications, network and data centre is available here.
MD Web Hosting is a registered company and has been providing web hosting and domain name services since 2001. We originally started in Adelaide, Australia and later moved to Melbourne, Australia. During this time, we have significantly increased our product range and options, and strengthened our ability to serve our customers by offering 24/7 support and increasing support resources. This has allowed MD to become a successful and reputable web hosting and domain name provider.
Please ensure you have entered your telephone number in the domain name registration/billing contact fields on the last page of the order form. In total, you should enter your phone number in 3 places. If you receive an error stating invalid telephone number format, please ensure your telephone has been entered correctly and the domain registration information is valid. The domain registration information can not be left blank, or without a telephone number for the admin/billing contacts. The telephone number should be entered in the following format: +(country code).(area)(telephone). e.g. +61398264802
Web hosting accounts are provisioned automatically in less than 10 minutes after signup. Every order is checked for fraud and there may be delays if our system requires we manually verify your account before accepting your order.
Yes, you can upgrade/downgrade your account to a similar product e.g. home package to business package, automatically via our billing system. There are no upgrade fees or additional charges to upgrade. There is a AU$22.00 administration fee to downgrade to a lower package. You will be charged the difference in package price only, calculated by our billing system.
We do offer custom plans once you exceed the limits of the highest package we offer. Keep in mind, all our packages have been designed with very generous limits.
There are no setup fees, hidden costs or lock-in contracts.
We do not charge for additional monthly data transfer. Our system will email you when you have reached approx. 80% of your monthly data transfer usage. At this point, we recommend you upgrade to a more suitable package to suit your hosting requirements. If you decide not to upgrade, and your monthly data transfer reaches more than allowed limit of your hosting package, your web site will not be able to deliver your web site. The monthly data transfer limits are reset to zero on the first of each month.
No, you do not need to provide your web site to MD on a disk. You simply need to upload it using FTP. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the standard way of transferring files on the Internet. You can use an FTP program to upload your existing web site to your web space. FTP is built into many programs including Frontpage, Dreamweaver and Windows Explorer. You can also download any FTP program from the Internet to transfer your files.
FTP Programs:
Core FTP Lite (windows, free): http://www.coreftp.com
WS FTP (windows): http://www.wsftp.com
Smart FTP (windows): http://www.smartftp.com
Cute FTP (windows and mac): http://www.cuteftp.com
Captain FTP (mac): http://www.captainftp.com
We have tutorial movies available to show you how to use some of the above FTP programs available here. If your program is not listed, you can still watch the movies, as the general process is the same in all programs.
Yes, we allow sites to have commercial advertisements and banners. We do not place our own banners or advertisements on your web site.
Yes, we have a large file available for download here.
Yes, we have a list of sites we host on different servers available here.
Our servers currently run Windows Server 2003 (Web, Standard and Enterprise), Redhat Linux Enterprise Version 3, 4 and CentOS 4 (Linux).
No, we do not allow pornographic web sites, mainly because it lowers the overall security of our servers for all users. We do however allow web sites with legal, adult content e.g. erotic stories, online stores, etc.
GST is included in the advertised price and our order form will charge GST for Australian customers as required by law.
Yes, you can host your friends.
MD does not offer SSH or terminal services access on our shared hosting plans, as it lowers the security of our servers for all users. MD has provided many alternatives to using these protocols, such as PHPMyAdmin for editing your databases and a File Manager to give you complete control over your files. In a modern hosting environment these tools are very rarely required.
If you require SSH and/or terminal services, we recommend a dedicated server from MD, which provides full server control and access.
Yes you can password protect directories with multiple usernames and passwords, from within your web hosting control panel. We have tutorial movies to assist you available here.
Sub domains are domain names which point to a subdirectory within your main hosting account and can be accessed by http://subdomain.maindomain.com. Sub domains are available to create through your control panel (check to see if your hosting package includes them). Subdomains are useful if you want to create a sub-web site, like a 'Customer Support web site', with its very own web address. Sub domains are created through your control panel.
You are only limited by web space for the number of web pages you wish to host. The business package for example includes 3000MB of web space, which is a lot of pages, movies, etc.
Selected hosting packages can support multiple domain name hosting at no additional cost. (The budget and email hosting packages do not support multiple domain name hosting). Add on domains allow you to host multiple domain names from one hosting account, utilising the extra space and bandwidth available on your main hosting account. Add on domains point to a subdirectory within your main hosting account. From a web user's perspective, an add-on domain functions just like any other domain name, and the user will not know the site is hosted from your main account. The browser's address bar will show 'http://www.add-on-domain.com' (no reference to your main domain name). Add on domains are created through your control panel (check to see if your hosting package includes them).
Yes, MD offers an affiliate program. More information about our affiliate program is available here. The affiliate program works by the affiliate placing an MD banner or text link on your web site. These are provided to you. When the link is clicked, and a new customer purchases from our web site, you receive a pay out. It's that simple!
Receive 10% of the sale from all new customers you refer to MD Web Hosting. It's free to join. No minimal referrals. Instant setup. You can check your affiliate statistics and payouts 24/7 via your affiliate control panel. More information about our affiliate program is available here.
The majority of the domain names we register for our customers are automatically provisioned in less than 10 minutes after signup. The exact processing time is available here.
It is a common misconception that you are required to transfer your domain name to your hosting provider for your hosting to work, and that your web site will become unavailable during the domain name transfer. Remember: A domain name transfer is a billing issue only and will not effect your current web hosting from working. Whilst your domain name is transferred, all the settings are locked.
If you elect to transfer your domain name to MD, this means that MD will be responsible for rebilling you for your domain name renewal at our low prices. You do not need to transfer your domain name to MD to use our web hosting services. For your current domain name to work with our hosting services, it simply needs to contain our DNS settings.
To transfer your domain name to MD, please read our transfer guides that explain the transfer steps, any special requirements that need to be met, approximate transfer time, costs, etc. The transfer guides are available here.
Yes, a domain name is required for your web site to function. Web hosting and domain names are two separate products which work together to give you a web site and/or email services. When you register a domain name from MD, you can package this domain with hosting at the time of signup, or use your domain name with any hosting provider.
On the full featured hosting packages you can host multiple domain names at no additional cost. The reseller packages allow you to host unlimited domain names as standard. You can host one domain name on the budget and email hosting packages.
Yes, you can use your existing domain name with any of our web hosting packages. When ordering online, please select 'I will use my existing domain name" on the online order form and enter your existing domain name.
Once your account has been created (usually 10 minutes after signing up when paying by credit card), you can update your domain's DNS details at your current registrar so that it points to our servers. More information about changing your domain name DNS settings is available here.
You do not need to provide the registration keys to us.
All domain names are non refundable and can not be changed once registered. If you need to change your domain, you will need you will need to register a new domain instead and let the current domain name expire. The domain name is licensed to the registered owner as listed in a WHOIS search. You are free to use your domain name registered through MD with any web hosting provider and/or transfer your domain name to another domain registrar. MD does not place our company as the registered domain owner on domains that we register for our customers.
Each domain name extension forms a seperate, distinct domain name. For example mydomain.com.au and mydomain.com are two different and distinct domain names, differentiated by the domain name extension.
.com.au and .net.au domain names have been specifically designed for the Australian market place and are only offered to the Australian businesses. All .au domain names have special eligibility requirements which must be met before your .au domain name can be registered.
There are many advantages of having a .au domain name, including being instantly identified as being Australian - the .au stands for Australia.
You may also wish to consider registering domain names with different extensions, such as .com or .net. These domain names are international domain names, designed for the world market and can be purchased by any one, with no special requirements. If available, it is always a good idea to purchase as many different domain names extensions as available e.g. mybusiness.com and mybusiness.com.au, as domain names are given on a first come, first serve basis.
Our web hosting dns settings can be found in your hosting welcome email. Alternatively, our DNS settings are available here. Please follow the instructions in your welcome email carefully to change your dns settings. Your domain name DNS settings need to be changed at your current domain name registrar via their domain management systems, so that your domain points to your current hosting account. If you are unable to change the domain name DNS settings yourself, please contact your current registrar for assistance. Once you have made any DNS changes, you will need to allow 24-72 hours for propagation of the new settings.
Yes, you can view your web site via our shared URL links before your domain name has propagated (resolves to MD). This is ideal when you need to test your web site before going live. Please read your welcome email for your shared URL link. Alternatively, our shared links are available here.
cPanel for Linux.
MD's cPanel tutorial movies are available here. The cPanel manual is available here.
Please see your welcome email for your control panel links.
After 8 attempts, our system will automatically block access to your username. This is done for security reasons to prevent unauthorised access and hacking to your account. The block will remove itself after 6 hours.
The path is /home/username/public_html (replace username with your control panel username)
The path to perl is /usr/bin/perl
The path to curl is /usr/bin/curl
What is the path to ImageMagick?
The path to ImageMagick is /usr/bin/
Try the following paths till one works: /usr/bin/ >>> /usr/local/bin/convert >>> /usr/bin/X11/ >>
The path to sendmail is /usr/sbin/sendmail
First make sure that they are chmoded to 755. If you are having further troubles, please click here.
Yes
Please see our getting started and troubleshooter guides available here.
For both incoming and outgoing mail server put mail.yourdomain.com
If you can not send email using mail.yourdomainname.com as your SMTP server, it may be because your ISP is blocking port 25 on their network, used for sending outgoing mail via the SMTP protocol. In this instance, we recommend using your ISPs outgoing mail server, which can be obtained from your ISP. This practice has been put in place in an effort to stop spam. Telstra and Optus are some well known companies that have implemented the blocking of port 25 on their network. The email will still appear to have come from you, however it will be sent through a different network. This is normal and perfectly acceptable.
Linux Hosting users can access their web mail at: http://www.domainname.com/webmail (replace domainnames.com.au with your domain name)
We have a contact form demonstration that you can order available here.
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My Account
You support your clients and MD supports you. This helps to reinforce you as a legitimate hosting identity.
Yes, our reseller packages allow you to host an unlimited number of web sites. You simply divide up the resources (bandwidth, web space and features) of your reseller package between your accounts. When you need more space or bandwidth, you can easily upgrade to the next level package.
We have a Search Engine submission service called the Search Activator.
Your server is usually provisioned within 24 - 72 hours once your order has been approved and screened for fraud.
If you do not elect to have server management from MD, you will be solely responsible for software upgrades, optimisation, configuration and resolving technical issues with your dedicated server. MD offers server management as an add on to our servers where we are responsible for software upgrades, optimisation, configuration and resolving technical issues with your dedicated server. More information and pricing is available here.
Alternatively, if you do not want server management, we can fix your issue on per issue basis at our standard technician rate.
Yes, your server is monitored by 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and we are automatically alerted to any problems should they arise. Our system can also be set to email you if your server or services become unavailable.
15 days prior notice is required to cancel your dedicated server.
A shared ssl displays as https//ip/~yourusername/ A private ssl would display as https://www.yourdomain.com in the address bar. A private SSL is more professional when conducting e-commerce online. MD provides private SSL certificates at discounted rates available here.
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