How to Create Addon Domain
What is an Addon Domain?
Every Namecheap hosting plan can host more than one domain name at a time; therefore, it’s possible to host more websites and email accounts without having to purchase a new hosting plan. The name for this? An addon domain name.
If you prefer to use PremiumDNS or any third-party nameservers, it will be required to proceed with the validation process described in step 2.
PLEASE NOTE: All of Namecheap’s Shared Hosting accounts share the same nameservers. Using the same domain name as your main domain name and as an addon domain name for hosting services can cause DNS synchronization issues which may result in your website(s) occasional downtime.
Follow the instructions below to add an addon domain.
Step 1 – Change the nameservers
To begin with, you will need to point your domain name to our hosting nameservers (for Shared Hosting plans: dns1.namecheaphosting.com and dns2.namecheaphosting.com, for Reseller Hosting: your private nameservers or Reseller Hosting nameservers specified in your Welcome Email).
Guidelines on how to change your nameservers to Shared Hosting for domain names that are registered with Namecheap can be found here.
If your domain name is registered with a third-party registrar, contact their customer support and ask to change the nameservers for your domain name to the following:
- For Shared Hosting plans: dns1.namecheaphosting.com and dns2.namecheaphosting.com
- For Reseller Hosting: your private nameservers or Reseller Hosting nameservers specified in your Welcome Email
Step 2 – Add the new domain as an Addon Domain
If the domain name is pointed to our hosting nameservers, it can be added to your hosting account right away.
2.Navigate to the Domains section >> the Addon Domains menu:
For cPanel Basic Theme:
For cPanel Retro Theme:
3. Enter the necessary information in the Create an Addon Domain section.
- New Domain Name: domain name you wish to add as an addon
To avoid the error message, That is not a valid domain, make sure there are no extra spaces before and after your addon domain name.
- Subdomain: will be filled in automatically
- Document Root: will be filled in automatically
If you wish to create an FTP account for your addon domain name, check the option Create an FTP account associated with this Addon Domain.
- FTP Username: will be filled in automatically
- Password: password for the associated FTP account
- Password (Again): repeat the password
4. Click Add domain.
If your domain name was not pointed to our hosting nameservers beforehand, you will receive an error message when adding an addon domain:
Sometimes, it's not possible to point your domain name to our hosting name servers. Here are a few reasons why:
- Certain domain name types require a DNS zone file to be created on the hosting provider's side in advance
- You wish to create a website first and connect the domain name with it later
- You wish to keep the domain name pointed to third-party nameservers
In such cases, proceed with the validation process described below.
Domain name control validation
If there isn’t a way to change the nameservers for your domain name, you must complete the required domain name validation process:
In order to be able to add your domain name, you must proceed with one of the required validation options:
- DNS-based Validation (the TXT record should be created)
- HTTP-based Validation (the HTML file should be created)
- HTML-based Validation (the provided code should be added to the head section of the main website page)
PLEASE NOTE: The provided validation code is only valid for 1 day.
As soon as the required validation record is created, go to
Begin Validation.
If there are any issues with the validation, get in touch with our Hosting Support department via
Live Chat or
Ticket.
You may now upload content for your new domain name into the corresponding document root. More information on how to upload your website
can be found here.
If you wish to create an email account for your newly-added domain name, feel free to
refer to this guide.
How to Remove an Addon Domain
If you need to remove an addon domain name, go to the Addon Domains menu >> click on Remove to proceed:
Check the Delete the associated FTP account option if you wish to delete the FTP account for your addon domain name from the FTP Accounts menu in your cPanel, then click Remove:
PLEASE NOTE: The document root, as well as the content associated with the removed addon domain name, will still be present in your File Manager. If you would like these files to be deleted as well, you will need to remove the corresponding folder from File Manager manually.
That's it!