For those of you who have the convenience of a great hosting package that allows you to create as many subdomain’s and databases as you want, here is how you add an add-on domain.
Before I go into details on how to do this however, lets looks at what an add-on domain is.
An add-on domain is nothing else than pointing a new (extra) domain name to your host and setting up a database for it to work. Which means if you purchase further domains on top of your original domain that is hosted with your host, you can create an new database to set them up so when you type the domain name into a browser, they will load as a website in itself, despite the fact that is it is hosted on the same account you already have.
Example:
your main site is: http://www.yourwebsite.com
[Clarification entry: a sub domain is a sub folder in your main domain that you can set up for free without extra cost via the subdomain button in your Cpanel. If your site is called http://www.shopDOT.com you can set up a sub called shoe. Your new subdomain would then read http://www.shoe.shopDOTcom ]
After you managed to set your site/blog up you suddenly decide to go into niche marketing and buy a really great pre-owned domain on GoDaddy for a bargain. So far so good, but now you are stuck in what to do next. Obviously you will need to create a new site on your existing hosting account (provided you can), so here is what you do.
First, as soon as you take ownership of your domain you need to login into your domain registrars admin and forward your nameservers to point to your host. You will get this information when you first register and it will be something like:
NS.123.YOURHOSTDOMAIN.COM
NS.234.YOURHOSTDOMAIN.COM
It will take anywhere from 2-24 hours for this to eventuate. Once you are certain the domain has propagated, move onto the next step.
Login to your hosts Cpanel, below is a screens hot of what you will see (please understand that the options will differ depending on your host).
As you can see in the top right corner is an icon called Addon Domains. You want to click on this. The following window will appear.
In the 3 fields shown you add the following information:
New Domain Name: domain.com (this is the new domain name you just purchased without the prefix of http:// or www.
Username/directory/subdomain Name: will automatically be generated for you
Password: choose a password that is hard to guess but easy to remember for you
then click Add Domain!
That’s it, you will be taken to a new screen to confirm successful adding the subdomain.
If you have trouble thinking of terms like sub domains or add-on domains, it might help to see this as if you were adding a new folder/file (directory) to your main folder/file (directory) which is your main website.
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I have always wondered how to make my subdomain to appear as “subdmainname.maindomain.com” instead of “maindomain.com/subdomainname”. Any help there chief?
Hello Kay,
Go to the cpanel and click on the Subdomain button. You will see a blank input box where you can type the Subdomain Name that you want to add.
Immediately after that is a box filled in with your Maindomain and possibly a drop down arrow (if you have more than one Main domains.) Select which Main Domain you want the subdomain to be a part of.
Then click the ADD button.
Now you will have a site like this:
subdomain.maindomain.com
Hope this helps,
–Henry Juarez
Now I am really confused.
Why would you want to make a domain name that you had purchased a sub-domain? Wouldn’t you want it to stand alone as a separate domain?
I thought that you would only add a sub-domain to your main domain if you had not purchased the domain name. Then the URL would read as http://www.sub-domain.maindomain.com
I am learning, but I didn’t think you had to pay for a new domain name if it is attached to the main domain name as a sub-domain. i.e. Your niche main domain was “golf.com” and you wanted to add “golf tips”, thus http://www.golftips.golf.com.
Then you buy the new domain name “sailing.com” and it becomes a new stand alone site “sailing.com”. Because it is a different niche you would buy the domain name and not attach it to the golf site.
Am I making sense? Could someone clarify this for me?
Thanks bunches.
Must be in the stars. I was in need of just the instructions. In the past week I purchased a couple of new domaims and was stuck on how to do just that. Adding addons.
But I was also wondering is there a way to have new domains stand on their own. I know it through me a bit when a friend of mine added a domain I bought awhile ago. example: yadayada.originaldomain.com. Well one domain had nothing to do with the other. It still is a little unclear but so long as it works I just live with. Thogh I do like to know how things work.
Anyway, thanks again for the instructions, it was a blessing
Hi Henry,
Thanks for clarifying this with Kay. I missed this comment for some reason and it’s great to have our readers stepping in when that happens.
Hi June,
You are correct in terms of adding sub domains under a main domain. To create a sub for your existing site choosing the name “today” it would then read http://today.junerecommendsDOTcom and yes again, it would cost you anything.
The above example in my post was explaining how to ad a new domain name you bought to your hosting account (both are totally different kettle of fish).
Hi Theresa,
I realize that I might have confused a couple of you with the mention of the “sub” domain. I have added a clarification point above that should explain the difference a little better.
Addon domains and subs are a little different and since I wrongly used the name sub in the title it confused some readers.
My apologies and hopefully this will be now easier to comprehend.
Well Henry, that’s what I did. It still shows my actual root folder…
Hi Kay,
I just did a test on one of my domains. The main domain name is youlovedogs.com.
I went to my cpanel and clicked on the subdomain button. I created the subdomain “puppies” in the main domain “youlovedogs” and clicked the ADD button like I mentioned in my post above.
Next, I created a simple index.html file. You’ll see it in a minute.
I then went to my cpanel again and clicked on the File Manager button. I clicked on the public_html folder to open its contents. I saw my puppies folder that I had just created so I clicked on its folder. I then uploaded my index.html file and that is all that was necessary. Take a look at the message I sent you when you enter http://puppies.youlovedogs.com
It works the way it’s supposed to. By the way, before I uploaded my index file, I checked to see what came up at that address and it had a link to my parent directory, but when I clicked on it it said I was Forbidden to access that page (or something to that effect). Anyway, once I uploaded the index file, it worked correctly.
I sure hope that is what the problem is for you because I can’t think of why else it’s not working.
I wish you luck,
–Henry
Hi,
thanks for the lesson.
wow I’ve been wasting money on hosting then,
I always got a new hosting account for each website
I built.
Having many add-on domains thus many different websites
on one hosting account is seo friendly. The search engines
won’t penalize this??
Thanks,
Jeremy
@ Jeremy: oh my, I do feel for your pocket Jeremy. As for your question, no that doesn’t influence SEO one bit. Since you run every site on it’s own domain, it depends on the site is optimized for on page SEO plus your incoming links on how it performs on the search engines.
So please go ahead and save yourself tons of money.
Thanks Monika,
that’s great!
Here is the article that caused me concern.
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2007/03/which_is_better.html
it doesn’t make sense for Google to ban ip blocks,
unless all the sites were bad or linked together.
What do you make of this article.
@ Jeremy: to be honest, I never heard this before. And if what they say is true (that some 90% of websites sit on shared hosts and are in danger of getting shut down if they share an IP with a spammer, then I assume many of us would be without a host right now).
I think with the amount of spam we are getting there are a lot more spammers and dubious website owners out there than we think.
If this were a problem, then the big reliable hosting companies couldn’t keep their business afloat since websites would be banned left right and center.
So here is what I think: if you stick with a reliable host, then you are fine. If you try to save money and go with a no name company you might run into problems.
Does this answer your question to your satisfaction?
How silly of me. All this while I thought one need to create your own sub folder first before adding a sub domain..duh! Ha ha.
My personal blog above has been created on that mistake. Thanks mate. (I would have never known if Monika never wrote about this simple post)
What a great day it’s gonna be.
Thanks Monika makes sense, right now I’ve been
with Lunarpages.com, their very good.
One could also get one dedicated ip address,
and put all your domains on that, without getting
additional hosting.
Jeremy
Thank you for this article. I have a question. I added an addon domain as shown and all is well. Why do I now have a listing under my Subdomain option with the following?
Original account domain: 123.com
Addon domain: xyz.com
New Subdomain (automatically created): xyz.123.com
Attempts to remove the subdomain give me this: SubDomain Removal
Sorry, the subdomain xyz cannot be removed because it is linked to the addon domain xyz.com. You must first remove the addon domain.
I’m just confused as to why it shows up in the first place if addon domains are supposed to be seperate from the primary domain.
Thanks in advance!
Ann
How do I know when the domain has propagated,
I set the nameservers to my host. When I type in the domain
it says server not found.
It has been a few days, so it should be ready.
Jeremy
I called my host, they said it is ready.
They did a who is lookup to see where my domains
were pointing to.
Jeremy
@ Ann: sorry for this late answer. I missed out on your question.
To answer it, when you create an Addon domain, the host automatically creates a sub domain, even though you didn’t. Don’t ask me why, but it does.
And you are correct, you can’t delete this since it is “bound” to your Addon domain. All you do is ignore it.
@ Jeremy: taking that long is indeed very strange. It has never taken longer than 6 hours with my host (even though they say it can take up to 48 hours).
I guess your second message means you have it resolved now?
Hi,
Good post! I do understand the difference between addon and sub domains. However, the problem I am having is this: I tried adding an adon domain which I purchased and when I type the URL in: http://www.addondomain.com it turns out like this:
http://www.originaldomain.com/addondomain.com
Now this is through CPanel 11 so I don’t know if this changes anything…
Do I have to change anything in the htacess file? Or can I amend this through cpanel?
Appreciate any help you can give!
I have a problem with addon domains that maybe you guys can help me with. I have a domain http://linkarmy.net/ this is blocked via websense classification.
In order for other members to be able to login to my site, I use a different domain, supposing http://macuser.me/ that is allowed on their office.
Now, my site is being indexed using 2 different domains! It would look like duplicate content. The problem is that I cannot 301 redirect macuser.me to linkarmy.net because then, the site will be end up being blocked again.
Can anyone help? Please?
Great read buddy ,thank you
Yes,sub-domains are as important as your domain and it is important to refrain from using un-remembrable sub-domains…
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