I have purchased a hodting service from hostgator, which allows me to host infinite number of domains. But the domain hosting is not independent; eahc domain is mapped to a sub directory of the hosting by using a function in CPanel called addon domain. I wonder if I set up a site based on this type of domain hosting, would there be any significant penalty for searching engines compared to other independent hosting? Thanks for your replies.
That really depends on how it's coded. I'm not sure of the terminology, but if the user sees the domain in their browser, and it doesn't redirect to the subdomain - that's good. If the user sees domainname.org/page1.htm (for instance) in their browser: that's excellent. In other words: if there is a redirect to the subdomain, that's bad. If there's a frame in place to hide the subdomain that's bad too. If those two things are not there, you have nothing to worry about.
I was worried about the same thing also, and have been looking for a new host since. Just saw what kh7 said, and it seems that the site is hosted by itself but what troubles me is maindomain.com/2ndaddon will lead you to 2ndaddon.com, and I dont know whether that hurts or not.
hostgator is just doing this for unlimited domain hosting. My major concern is if that has some panelty in google search engine and index. I believe that from user point of view, they will see the same things like an indepedent domain, but how about those bots, will they go deeply down into directories? Experts of DP: please give us your cents. Thanks!
It is pretty hard to give more information than I already did without seeing the site itself. If the user sees site.com/page3.htm - then I'm sure the SE's will too.
I've been hosting with HostGator for quite a while and I've got quite a few domains in my account. The main domain I originally registered there with does not even have a site there. All my other domains are addon domains. I have a quite a few top ten positions for keywords on these domains, so I don't think this matters at all. This is actually pretty standard practice with a lot of domain hosters. Its jsut a way for you to manage the domains and let them have one domain to contact you with. Each domain has its own DNS entry so thats pretty standard stuff.