cPanel addon domains, domain aliases and domain redirects
If you own a website, then it is most probably managed through the cPanel hosting control panel. If you are relatively new to hosting or haven't so far paid so much attention to the cPanel features, you may be wondering what is all about the features under the Domains section.
Well, if you fall under this category, then this article is for you. I had previously covered the subdomains feature of the cPanel Domains section. In this article, we will cover all that you need to know about addon domains, aliases, and redirects.
Addon Domains
You can have several websites hosted under the same hosting account if your web host supports the creation of Addon Domains.
Addon Domains are fully functional additional domains hosted in your account, and whose files are stored in subfolders. It is the best option to run multiple websites on a single cPanel account. The system treats these domains as a subdomain to your website.
Creating a new Addon Domain
Step 1: Click on the "Addon Domains" link under Domains
Step 2: Fill in your domain name in the "New Domain Name" field. "Subdomain" and "Document Root" will be automatically filled.
Step 3: You can create an FTP account, which will be associated with the Addon Domain. To create an FTP account, tick the "Create an FTP account associated with this domain" checkbox.
Step 4: Enter FTP Username and Password and click "Add Domain" to create an FTP account. You will get a success message if all goes well.
The addon domain will get listed under the addon domains table. A directory(which was pre-filled) will also automatically be created where you can be uploading and creating your website files.
To remove an Addon Domain, Scroll down to the "Modify Addon Domain" Section and press the Remove link from Actions corresponding to the Addon Domain.
Domain aliases
To protect your business brand, you may want to register different versions of your domain name to protect them from being taken by someone else. You may for example register yourdomain.com, yourdomain.us, yourdomain.co.uk, yourdomain.net, yourdomain.io, etc.
When you register these alternative domain names, you most probably would want them to point to the same website instead of having multiple websites for each domain name.
Domain Aliases allow your website to load from another domain. When a user enters the Alias Domain(aka Parked Domain) to access the website, they will automatically be redirected to your main (primary) domain and load the website.
Creating a Domain Alias
Note: The domain name you wish to add as an alias must be already registered and configured to point to your DNS servers before it can be used as an alias.
Step 1: Click on "Aliases" under the Domains section
Step 2: Fill in the Domain field and click the "Add Domain" button.
To remove a domain alias:
Step 1: While on the Aliases page, scroll to "Remove Aliases".
Step 2: Click on the "Remove" link corresponding to the domain name you want to remove under the Actions column. You will be prompted to confirm.
Step 3: Click on the "Remove Alias" button. On successful removal, you will get a success message.
Domain Redirects
For some reason, you may decide to change your website domain name, maybe due to a change of business/brand name. You can retain the current users/visitors of your website by making sure that everyone who visits the old domain name gets redirected to the new one.
The redirects option of the cPanel allows you to send all the visitors of a domain or a particular webpage to a new domain.
There are two types of redirects available:
Permanent (301) Redirect
This type redirects all your website visitors to a new website and updates your visitor's bookmarks. It also directs search engines to your new website.
This redirect is permanent and means that the page has moved. So, the Search Engines and other crawlers update their data according to the new URL. The popularity and SEO of the new URL remain the same as the old URL.
Temporary (302) Redirect
This one redirects your visitors to a new website but does not update your visitor's bookmark. The search engines still index your original website. This redirect is temporary and search engines think that the new URL will be removed, hence it does not get the same popularity as the old one.
Creating a Redirect
Step 1: Click on the "Redirects" option under the Domains section
Step 2: Select your redirect type from the dropdown options (Permanent or Temporary).
Step 3: Select the domain name you want to redirect from the dropdown options.
Step 4: In the next field, enter the path of the page or path of the folder you want to redirect.
Step 5: Enter the full URL of the page your domain will be redirected to, in the "Redirect to" field. You will also need to specify the protocol as well, http:// or https://.
Step 6: Select www. redirection, it determines whether you want your domain to be redirected with www or not. Explanations of options are given below.
- Only redirect with www. - This redirect will be done only if a user has entered www. in the URL.
- Redirect with or without www. - This redirect will always be done and does not depend on whether the user has entered www. in URL or not.
- Do not redirect www. - This redirect will not work if the user has entered www. in the URL.
It is recommended to choose the "Redirect with or without www" option.
Step 7: Check the "Wild Card Redirect" checkbox if you want to full domain redirection of files and folders to the new domain. For example, with wildcard redirection, www.example.com/pic.jpg will redirect to www.newdomain.com/pic.jpg.
Step 8: Click on the "Add" button to save the settings.
