Glossary Entry
What is Addon Domain?
What Addon Domain actually means, buzzwords removed — with the example that makes it land.
The short answer
An addon domain is a second, entirely separate website served from the same account, with its own name and its own folder, drawing on the account's shared resources.
The rest of the page opens it up — the mechanics, why a site owner should care, and one concrete example of it at work.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 18 August 2026
0
Jargon left undefined
100+
Entries, all cross-linked
Real
Working examples
Free
To read, always
How many you may add depends on the plan. Each gets a document root of its own, its own mailboxes and its own certificate, and to a visitor it behaves like a completely independent site.
What they share is fate. Every addon domain rides on the same account's resources, security posture and suspension status, which is sensible when one person owns them all and reckless when several people do.
A way to picture Addon Domain
Several aircraft operating under one air operator's certificate. Each has its own livery and its own route, but the certificate covers the fleet, and a single suspension grounds every one of them.
Any analogy flattens the detail, naturally — but this one is solid enough to think with, and thinking is what a jargon buster is for.
Why this term earns a page
It is the economical arrangement for one owner with a few projects, and the wrong arrangement for paying clients, whose sites need genuine isolation. That is exactly the job the reseller model exists to do.
Nobody expects you to work at this layer daily. The aim is recognising it when it explains something — and that moment is exactly when this page pays for itself.
Addon Domain out in the open
On one Turbo plan a hobbyist keeps a blog, a recipe archive and a local club's page as three addon domains: three distinct sites behind a single login and a single invoice.
Scale that example across every website online and you have described the whole job of the concept in one stroke.
Where it appears on this platform
Here it largely looks after itself, since the defaults are sensible and the panel puts the controls within reach the moment you want them. Read on: Subdomain, Parked Domain, Shared Hosting and Reseller Hosting.
Hosted somewhere else already? We move the whole site at no charge, usually within 24 hours, and it goes on answering visitors throughout.
A jargon buster from the people who answer the tickets
Sooner or later every confusing hosting term turns into a support ticket, so we defined the hundred commonest ones properly — once, in the same plain English we use with customers.
A copy is taken daily on every plan, and putting a file or a database back is one click in the panel rather than a support ticket.
- 100+ entries, plain English all the way
- Ordinary analogies, working examples
- Neighbouring ideas linked together
- Written by our own support engineers
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
Stakes made explicit
More than what a thing is: the moments it turns out to be the answer to a problem you have.
Cross-wired entries
Related terms point at each other, so one lookup compounds into working knowledge.
This term, properly landed
Addon Domain defined, pictured by analogy and located in your own panel — recognise-level after a single read.
Analogies that hold
Every concept comes with a mental model that returns exactly when you need it.
Jargon-free by design
Definitions written for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — translation rather than restatement.
Clear about how deep to go
Most of these are recognise-level rather than operate-level, and every entry says which it is.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Find it in your own account
Open the control panel and find where this idea sits — a definition turns into understanding the moment it attaches to your own site.
- 2
Check the defaults as they stand
Look at how your account has it configured. Nine times in ten the default is right, and a check turns the guess into certainty.
- 3
Chase the neighbouring terms
Hosting terms travel in groups — Subdomain, Parked Domain and Shared Hosting finish this one's picture, each a two-minute read away.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- PHP versions set per site from the control panel
- Spam and virus screening on every mailbox by default
- SSH, Git and Composer on the developer plans
- WordPress Toolkit, with the updates seen to for you
- Softaculous included for one-click application installs
- Upgrades applied in place, with no migration when you change plan
- NVMe SSD storage on every tier, not only the dear ones
- The name's first year included when you order annually
- WebP image optimisation built in, at no extra charge
- Free SSL on every plan, reissued before the old one lapses
Frequently Asked
The questions that come up most
Would a visitor know an addon domain when they saw one?
Nothing reveals it. A domain of its own, a certificate of its own, content of its own. The arrangement exists entirely within the hosting account and leaves no trace on the public web.
Why are addon domains wrong for client sites?
Because trouble travels sideways. One compromise or one suspension takes every site on the account down with it, and when a client leaves, their site is entangled with your own hosting. Separate reseller accounts are the professional answer.
Is there a safe place to try changes?
Yes — plans with staging let you copy the live site, work on the copy, then publish it once it behaves. That turns 'hope the update works' into 'know it works' before a single customer meets it.
How do I read my mail away from my desk?
Webmail runs in any browser, and every mailbox also speaks IMAP, POP and SMTP — so the app on your phone, the client on your desk and webmail stay in step, showing the same messages in the same state.
Keep reading
Reseller Hosting
With reseller hosting you buy capacity wholesale and sell it under your own name, using tools that create, …
Parked Domain
Park a domain and you have a registered name aimed at your hosting that serves nothing of its own: held for…
How to Add an Addon Domain
Step by step, with every snag flagged before you get to it.
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