The different types of domains (Main Domain, Add-on Domains, Alias Domains, Sub-Domains)

In addition to the main domain name on your hosting account, you can also create additional domain names such as addon domains, sub-domains, aliaseses and redirects. The number of domains you can create depends upon your hosting plan and its limits. This article explains the different types and differences.

In cPanel, you can manage your domains and sub-domains under the "Domains" page. This is a unified page which replaces the separate pages in older versions of cPanel.

Types of Domains

There are 4 types of domain names:

1. Main domain
   Example: www.yourdomain.tld - showing the content in the public_html directory.
2. Sub-domains
   Example: blog.yourdomain.tld - showing the content in public_html/blog directory (or any other defined document root).
3. Alias or Parked domains
   Example: yourotherdomain.tld - showing a mirror of the main domain with the content in the public_html directory.
4. Addon domains
   Example: yourotherdomain.tld - showing its own content from the public_html/yourotherdomain.tld directory (or any other defined document root).

Hence, if you purchased additional domain names and you wanted them all to mirror the main site, you can add them as parked/alias domains. If you want each domain to have its own content, you can add them as addon domain names. If you want one domain to have its own content and the others to redirect, you can add the one domain as an addon domain and the others as parked/alias domains with a redirect to the main domain or any other domain or URL you need.

How to Manage Domains

We have a separate article showing how you can manage the domains:

• How to add/remove domains on your cPanel hosting account

Update by SP on 10/01/2023