More Than One Domain Name


A. Domain forwarding

If all you want is to have joesgarage.net landing on the same web page as joesgarage.com and you don't care if, when a visitor gets there, the browser bar still says joesgarage.com then just arrange at your domain registration house to forward the domain. You can do this yourself and there is no cost. Your registrar may offer frame-based forwarding as well. This appears to work like parking (next option), but is not the same, because your domain is opened in a subwindow or frame of a web page at the registrar's machine. Since search engines only see the small frame site, they cannot index the content of your actual site. Frame based forwarding is therefore a bad idea if you want your site noticed.


B. Domain parking

If you want is to have joesgarage.net landing on the same web page as joesgarage.com and when a visitor gets there, the browser bar actually says joesgarage.net put in our nameservers for both domains at the registrar (of course you have to own both), then use your control panel to direct our server to "park" the second domain on top of the first. You do have to have a high-end enough account to allow this.

Now, references in a browser to joesgarage.net will end up at your website, and joesgarage.net will show up in the browser bar as the name being browsed, though the content will be the same as your main site. Note that this is slightly different than forwarding joesgarage.net at the DNS to joesgarage.com, because in that case, joesgarage.net does not show in the browser bar (though the effect is pretty similar).


C. Additional sites

If you want to have more than one website, or if you wish to partition your existing website so that it becomes two (or more) somewhat independent websites under the same account, you have several options.


Option 1: Buy more accounts
You could simply buy a second or third account with WebNameHost for your additional websites. This is a good option if you want to keep everything separate and/or want to have a control panel for each account. WebNameHost gives generous discounts for customers wanting to do this. See our multiple domain pricing page for examples. If you don't fit one of the examples, contact us and ask for a quote.


Option 2: Subdomains
On all our accounts you are allowed to create subdomains or third level domains as they are also called. This is a domain of the form

mysubdomain.mydomain.net

This is a good option if you want to think of your website as a collection of semi-independent sites. When someone types this in a browser (there is NO www in front) your index page at mydomain.net/mysubdomain/ is shown. However, this is more than simply a subfolder in your account as the subdomain name (not the folder name) shows in the browser bar. Moreover, this subdomain has its own cgi-bin. You can put an image folder in this directory, set up FTP users and email to it, and so on. Subdomains are a way of providing a logical division of your main domain into smaller chunks, but are not autonomous from your main domain. The number of subdomains permitted on a given account depends on the account level you have bought


Option 4*: Addon Domains
If you have paid WebNameHost for an account with one or more addon domains, you can combine features of the above in one construct. An addon domain is a subdomain (though it does not function as one) with a domain parked on that subdomain. What happens in effect is this: From your control panel it looks like you have one account with subdomain/addon domains in subdirectories of that account. You manage the entire collection from the one control panel as if it were a single site with many directories. But from the point of view of a web browser or FTP client, these are treated as separate web sites. The web browser looking at an addon domain does not "know" it lives underneath your main domain in one of its directories. [In fact this is how the whole server works; there is a hierarchy starting with /home and going from there to reseller accounts, then subaccounts under these, and then addon or subdomains under these.] When FTPing, just give the appropriate user and password and you will be taken to your main site or subsite as the case may be.
Suppose Joe's garage has a cafe, and you want the domain joescafe.net to be served out of your account for joesgarage.com, say from the subdirectory/subdomain eatery.

You should get a confirmation page telling you that all has been set up correctly and that FTP and mail forwards have been established. Note that you get only one control panel and must manage all your domains from it. The total storage size and traffic of all domains must not exceed your account limits. This is a good option for someone who wants to have 2-5 independent websites but will not be selling them to other people, or for a designer who will control all the sites for a customer. In either case, they can all be managed from the same control panel using the same login and password.


Option 5*: Reseller
If you have more than five domains you want hosted, your best bet is to become a reseller. The most basic entry point is Reseller 0, which is found on our multiple domain pricing page, but this is an example only, and there are other possibilities. The reseller page lists four popular reseller options, but if a different arrangement suits you, contact us for a quote.

Resellers get WebHost Manager, which is a separate control panel from cPanel that allows them to create fully autonomous accounts, each with its own web site and its own cPanel control panel. This is a good option for designers who want to give their customers a measure of control over their own sites. But, resellers can also set and advertise their own prices for these accounts (in competition with us as web hosts), selling space and bandwidth up to the maximum allowed in their account. If anonymity is a factor, IP numbers for two nameservers can be obtained from us so that neither our server name nor our company name appear in the nameservers. (They would be of the form ns1.yourcompanyname.net and ns2.yourcompanyname.net). The number for ns1 would also be the IP number of your main account and of all your resold accounts, and the second number could be used by you to point to some specific website. Numbers for this purpose are free of charge to use (though there is an installation fee), but please don't ask for them unless you need them.
Comment: Anonymity is overrated, as the IP number can be traced if someone really wants to find out where you are buying your hosting from.



*NOTE: If you do have five or more domains, you ought to do the following as well (it makes things much easier for all of us):

From Arjay Web Services division of Arjay Enterprises and affiliate of Arjay Books