Addon domains in cPanel

Last updated: 30 March 2021

An addon domain lets you host another domain on your cPanel account. If you want to host more than one website then an addon domain is often the best way to do so. Instead of having separate cPanel accounts all your domains are managed via one control panel.

Creating an addon domain

In cPanel, an addon domain is really just a subdomain with an alias. As a result addon domains have some limitation. I’ll touch on those later. For now, just think of addon domains as a separate virtual host. You can set up email accounts for the addon domain and set up a redirect, just like you can for the main domain on your account.

Like many other pages in cPanel, the Addon Domains page has two sections:

• At the top of the page you can create an addon domain.
• Existing addon domains are listed at the bottom of the page.

To create an addon domain you only need to enter the domain name. You can normally leave the Subdomain and Document Root fields blank, but you can change the values cPanel suggests if you wish.

Image: creating the addon domain example.com

In the above example I created the addon domain example.com. The domain is linked to the subdomain example.example.net and the website files are stored in the public_html/example.com directory. The subdomain is a bit odd. As mentioned, it is just how cPanel handles addon domains. They need the subdomain (so don’t delete it!).

Addon domain FTP account

I did not tick Create an FTP account associated with this addon domain. If you manage both the main domain and the addon domain then you don’t need a separate FTP account. This is because the addon domain’s directory is a subfolder of the public_html directory. You can therefore access the website files using your main FTP account.

If you do opt to create an FTP account then the FTP user only has access to the website files for the addon domain. This option is therefore useful if you want to give someone FTP access to the addon domain only (and not to the main domain).

Of course, you can also manage FTP accounts via the FTP interface.

Managing addon domains

Existing addon domains are listed under the heading Modify Addon Domain.

Image: viewing existing addon domains.

There are a couple of actions for existing addon domains:

• Clicking on Document Root opens the directory in cPanel’s file manager.
• Clicking on the pencil icon lets you change the location where the website files are stored. There should really be no reason to change this but if you want to, you can.
• The Remove link does exactly what it says on the tin: it deletes the addon domain. The website files are not be deleted but any email addresses linked to the addon domain are purged.
• The Manage Redirection link lets you set up a redirect. If you want to point the addon domain to another domain (or a specific URL) then this is where you can do so. You can also manage redirects via cPanel’s Redirects interface.

The addon domain addon

If you need an addon domain but your hosting package doesn’t have any addon domains available then you can either upgrade your hosting package or purchase the addon domain addon. The latter option is cheaper (£10 per annum plus VAT) but you need to have enough available resources.

The main thing to consider is whether or not you have enough available disk space, bandwidth, databases and email accounts on your current hosting plan. If you are not sure what your best option is, we are happy to help you decide: either give us a call on 0800 107 7979 or submit a ticket.

Addon domains and aliases

Earlier I mentioned that addon domains have some limitations. One of them is that you can’t create an alias for an addon domain via cPanel. We can add an alias for you, but you won’t be able to manage it via cPanel.

Converting an addon domain to a new hosting account

It is possible to convert an addon domain to a stand-alone hosting account. Please open a ticket if you would like us to do so.