When you sign up for your own web hosting account you typically receive x number of free additional domains. This means you can host other websites (domains) on your one web hosting account. These are called Addon Domains or Sub Domains. We’ll be discussing Addon Domains for this post.
For example, with my HostGator account I pay for one site and get unlimited free additional sites (domains) that I can host on my one account.
So what does that mean? Well, let’s take for example a main website called www.mymainsite.com. When you install this site on your web hosting site, it can be located in the root folder which is /.
Control Panel (cpanel)
When you want to add another website to your hosting site, you would pick Addon Domain. I’m using HostGator and the management tool called cpanel or Control Panel as it’s called. Here is a screenshot of what the Addon Domain menu selection looks like.
After selecting Addon Domains you’ll be presented with the following screen.
After adding the my2ndsite.com to your main website, you’ll have a tree structure like this – /public_html/my2ndsite. This is where you can add WordPress if that’s what you’re wanting to do. So you have a WordPress installation in the root at / and one at /public_html/my2ndsite.
Fantastico
With cpanel under my HostGator account, I can use the Fantastico software tool to install another instance of WordPress.
Now that I’ve created an Addon Domain, when the WordPress install asks me what domain I want to install WordPress on, I can slect the my2ndsite.com domain. The install directory would be left blank after selecting the my2ndsite.com domain. This will install WordPress into the root of the Addon Domain my2ndsite.com.
The admin username and password asked for during the WordPress install is the username and password you will use when you want to administer WordPress on your my2ndsite.com/wp-admin.
The Site name is the blog title and the Description is the blog tag line that will show up under the blog title.
Name Servers
A Name Server is where you’re web hosting is located. Although there’s more to a name server than that, I’ll leave it at that since all you really need to know for this task is where your name servers should be pointing to.
Let’s say you used GoDaddy to register your new domain name my2ndsite.com. You need to go change the name servers from GoDaddy’s default name servers to your web hosting account name servers.
For example, let’s say the two default nameservers are nsx.godaddy.com where x is a number. You would edit the name servers and change them to your name servers that you get at your web hosting site, which could be for example nsxxx.hostgator.com.
Now you and the rest of the world can browse to your new website www.my2ndsite.com. Woo Hoo!!
Recap
- You have a main site called www.mymainsite.com and you want to start another website using your current web hosting site because you can add unlimited domains.
- You create an Addon Domain called my2ndsite.com.
- You installed WordPress into my2ndsite.com.
- You change your domain’s name server to point at your my2ndsite.com domain located at your web hosting site.
Capiche? I know, clear as a bell. Ask any questions if you need help in the comments or contact me using the contact form.
Nikolay » Great points Nikolay, thanks.
This is really a helpfull info ….i will try this as possible as early .
I’m trying to add subdomains to my main site but am wary about google being stingy about stuff like this. Are they taking any actions on those who have subdomains?thanks a million for your top-notch, clear and correct instructions for adding an addon domain. It worked a treat, first experiment with! I appreciate your site.
Thanks for the response here……thanks a lot .