Portfolio · Spare names · 5 minutes each
How to park an extra domain — What to Do With the Names You Bought and Never Used
A spare name doing nothing is an annual invoice; a spare name mirroring your site is worse than nothing.
The short answer
A parked name can do one of three things — mirror your main site as an alias, redirect permanently to it, or serve a holding page of its own — and for brand-protection names the redirect is almost always the right choice.
Parking is configured at the hosting layer rather than the registrar, so the name has to point here first. And whichever option you choose, the spare still needs a certificate and still needs a decision about mail.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
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Most portfolios contain three kinds of spare: misspellings, sibling endings, and names bought for projects that never happened. Each wants a different treatment, and the annual invoice does not distinguish between them.
Five minutes per name, plus one afternoon a year deciding which ones to stop renewing.
Three things a spare name can do
An alias makes the spare serve the same site under a different name — both names return identical pages. A permanent redirect sends everybody who arrives at the spare over to the main name. A holding page gives the spare a small site of its own, usually one page saying what is coming.
The alias is the option people choose by default and the one that most often turns out wrong. Two names publishing the same pages compete with each other in search, splitting the standing you have built between them, and neither one wins the result you actually wanted.
Parking happens at the hosting layer
The registrar does not park anything; it only decides where the name points. Give the spare the same nameserver pair as the main name, then add it in cPanel's Aliases screen — which older versions call parked domains — so the web server recognises it and knows what to serve.
Miss the second half and the name resolves to a server that has never heard of it, which produces whatever default page that server shows to strangers. That is the state most people mean when they say a name is not working.
A parked name still needs a certificate
Anybody who reaches the spare over https has to complete an encrypted handshake before anything else happens, including a redirect. So a spare with no certificate does not quietly redirect — it shows a security warning, which is a considerably worse first impression than a name that simply does not resolve.
Certificates issue automatically here once the name points at the platform, redirect-only names included. Check the https version of each spare after you set it up, not just the plain one.
Spare names still carry mail
This is the part portfolios forget. If a name has no MX record at all, sending servers fall back to the address in its A record — so a message addressed to somebody at your spare name arrives at a web server, which has no idea what to do with it and discards it. No bounce, no trace.
For a spare that has never been used for mail, publish a null MX record: it states plainly that the name accepts none, so senders receive an immediate rejection and know to try elsewhere. For a spare that has carried addresses in the past — an old brand, for instance — keep real MX records and forwarders running for at least a year.
The annual cull. Go through the portfolio once a year with the renewal dates in front of you. Names bought for projects that never happened renew quietly forever, and dropping ten speculative ones usually pays for pushing the names you actually use several years into the future.
Keep the misspellings of anything printed on vehicles or packaging, keep the sibling ending of your trading name, and be honest about the rest. A portfolio is a budget line, and an unexamined one grows in exactly one direction.
Domains, DNS and hosting under one login
The zone, the delegation and the registrar lock are all edited from the same account, which is why most jobs in this library take minutes rather than a ticket and a wait.
Order an annual plan and the first year of the name's registration is included.
- Written for the person who holds the name
- Exact record types, hosts and values
- No step that quietly loses your mail
- Someone reachable while the change is still landing
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
Three options, with the right default
Alias, redirect or holding page — and a clear statement of why the redirect suits brand-protection names.
The mirror problem explained
Two names publishing one site compete in search, and the guide says so before you configure it that way.
Parking placed at the right layer
The registrar points the name; the hosting recognises it. Missing the second half is what produces a stranger's default page.
Certificates on redirect-only names
A spare with no certificate shows a warning instead of redirecting, and issuance here is automatic once it points at us.
Mail on spares dealt with
The fallback that silently swallows messages, and the record that makes a refusal explicit.
A portfolio you actually review
One afternoon a year, renewal dates in hand, deciding what to keep rather than renewing by inertia.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Decide the job before you configure anything
Brand protection and misspellings want a permanent redirect. A venture still ahead wants a holding page. Only names that genuinely should serve one site want an alias, and those are rarer than the default suggests.
- 2
Point the spare at the platform
Give it the same nameserver pair the main name uses. Parking is handled at the hosting layer, so the name has to arrive here before any of the three options can be configured.
- 3
Add it in cPanel and let the certificate issue
Use the Aliases screen, called parked domains in older versions, or add it as a domain of its own for a holding page. Then load the https version and confirm its certificate has issued.
- 4
Settle the mail, then diarise the renewal
Publish real MX records for a name that has carried addresses, or a null MX for one that never has, so nothing disappears into a web server. Then add the name to the annual portfolio review.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- Free SSL on every plan, reissued before the old certificate lapses
- Full zone control — A, CNAME, MX and TXT — from the panel
- Renewals billed at the figure you registered at
- No set-up charge at any point, and no joining fee
- Mailboxes that answer at the name you hold
- cPanel, which is what most of the industry already runs
- A daily copy, with restores you run yourself from the panel
- People on the support desk every hour of every day
- NVMe storage on every tier, not only the expensive ones
- Money back within 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Is an alias the same as a redirect?
No, and the difference matters. An alias makes both names serve identical pages, which splits your standing in search between two addresses. A redirect sends everyone to one name and consolidates it. For a spare bought to protect a brand, the redirect is the right answer nearly every time.
Do parked names need their own certificate?
Yes. Any name somebody could reach over https needs to complete an encrypted handshake first, and a redirect cannot run in front of a failed one. Certificates issue automatically here once the name points at the platform, redirect-only names included.
Should a spare name have MX records?
It needs a deliberate decision either way. With no MX record at all, senders fall back to the A record and mail arrives at a web server that discards it silently. Publish a null MX for a name that has never carried addresses, and keep real records for a name that used to.
How many spare names is too many?
When the renewals cost more than the risk they cover. Keep the misspellings of anything printed on vehicles or packaging and the sibling ending of your trading name; be honest about names bought for projects that never happened. An annual review with the renewal dates in front of you settles it in an afternoon.
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