If you are like me I’m sure you have multiple domains and different projects that require to be hosted somewhere. Well, I used to make the mistake of getting a separate hosting package for each domain I own not knowing that it was possible to host all my domains under one $12.95 hosting account. This is a cost effective solution that will save you from paying individual prices to different companies for availing individual hosting services.

First you need to have an account hosted at any web hosting who offers Unlimited Addon Domains and a cPanel Control Panel (I’m going to refer to this account as Primary Domain). If you don’t have an account with these features then you’ll need to signup with HostGator.com, Fatcow.com, Xenplay.com, and many others that offers it.

STEP 1. Next you need to have a secondary domain name registered with any registrar such as “Godaddy.com, Domains.com, etc.”. If you already have your domains registered, you should be given options to update the nameserver addresses on the domain via the account you’ve registered the domain under. Update the nameserver addresses on the domain so that they point to the same nameserver addresses which the primary domain on your account is already pointed to. You should be able to locate these by performing a WHOIS search on the primary domain name for your account via Who.is or any other WHOIS website on the web. Alternatively the correct nameserver addresses should be in the Welcome email you received after signing up for your primary hosting account.

STEP 2. Select the Addon Domains icon from the home page of the cPanel.

STEP 3. Next enter the domain name into the first field and then press the TAB key on your keyboard. This will cause the Subdomain/Ftp Username field, and the Document root fields to become populated with a default automatically. The Subdomain/Ftp Username field contains a name which will be used for both the FTP account which the cPanel creates by default to access the new Add-on domain, and also uses the same name for a subdomain it creates under your primary domain. For instance if your main domain is ‘janedoe.com’, then this Add-on domain will cause http://johndoejersey.janedoe.com/ to be created. Don’t worry about this though, people will not know to access the website via this subdomain unless you tell them it exists. You don’t necessarily have to use the default FTP account either. You can access the add-on domain folder from your main cPanel FTP account just the same.

Enter the FTP password twice into the fields as prompted, then click on the ‘Add Domain’ button to finish the process. Once this is done the server will be setup to host the new domain name, and the folder will be created for you to upload your website files into for the new website.

STEP 4. Done!,  now you can test your website, if everything was setup correctly you should be able to see a temporary index file.