What are Addon Domains

What are Addon Domains and how do they work? Do they function the same as a regular domain? Example: http://www.AddonDomain.com/catalog/page.htm <-- example NOT REAL

I've never heard of them till today.

 

It won't come up for me, "this site cannot be found".

 

that wasn't a real url. it was just an example to find out if something like that is possible with an Addon Domain

 

The general description I have always used is that an addon domain is a domain name that points to a directory of your web space, but is a separate name, not just a subdomain.

For example having a site "mysite.com" and puting in a directory, like "mysite.com/abc", then pointing a domain "addonsite.com" to the abc folder. Does that make sense?

Yes, they function just like regular domains. The only caveat is that you need to make sure that there aren't any references to the same page with two different names ("mysite.com/abc/mypage.html" and "addonsite.com/mypage.html") or the search engines might dish out a duplicate content penalty.

-- Dave

 

kind of. but then you keep the domain name right? so all files would still link up like "mysite.com/index2.php"

 

I was just editing my previous post.

I'm not juite sure I understand your question, but maybe this will answer it.

The "home" directory for your addon domain will be a folder (directory) beneath the "home" directory of your main site.

So, using the previous naming examples,

You can address

/homedir/abc/index3.php as

mysite.com/abc/index3.php or
addonsite.com/index3.php


But you can only address

/homedir/index2.php

as mysite.com/index2.php

There isn't a way to get to it from the addonsite.com domain.

-- Dave

 

Youd have a domain (yournewsite.com) for people to type in, and also benefit from the current domains (yoursite.com) content level.

 

Shannon,

Advantages:
1. Only one hosting fee (as you mentioned)
2. May be able to share include files and databases

Disadvantages:
1. Possible search engine confusion (i.e. duplicate content penalties) if you aren't VERY careful about keeping your links entirely separate.

-- Dave

 

An Add-On domain (as often used in CPanel) is different to a parked domain. A parked domain simply points to the same content of the domain you've parked it on. An Add-On domain when set up through CPanel, will create a directory *within* the web root directory of the domain you're adding it to.

The role of an add on domain is to share bandwidth and disk quota with the primary domain (the one you added to) yet with it's own email and ftp accts etc.

If you simply want to share the same resources as held by an existing domain, park it rather than setup as an add-on.

Cheers,

JL.

 

Thanks for all the info. I think I've got it figured out. Sounds sweet. I wanted it for hosting multiple sites on my site, however I don't think I'm gonna switch hosting companies so I won't have it anyways.

 

Does anyone know how addon domains do with search engines? I tried a test and it didn't look good. Does anyone have any tips? I'm new to addon domains.