Many Canadian businesses register more than one domain name. You might own both yourbusiness.ca and yourbusiness.com, or you might have grabbed a common misspelling of your brand name to prevent someone else from registering it. Once you have those extra domains, cPanel gives you a few different ways to use them - and the right choice depends entirely on what you want each domain to do.
What Is a Parked Domain?
A parked domain (also called a domain alias in newer versions of cPanel) is a domain that shows the exact same website as your primary domain. If yourbusiness.ca is your main site and you park yourbusiness.com on top of it, visitors who type either address into their browser will see the same content. The two domains are essentially two front doors to the same house.
The content is not duplicated - both domains point to the same files on the server. From a visitor's perspective, the experience is identical regardless of which domain they use.
Common use cases for parked domains:
- Brand protection - Registering
.ca,.com, and.netversions of your name so competitors cannot claim them - Covering misspellings - If customers regularly misspell your business name, register the common misspelling and park it
- Country-specific domains - Directing both a
.caand.comto the same Canadian site - Expired or rebranded names - Keeping an old domain name active so existing links and bookmarks still work after a rebrand
Parked domains are simple and require no additional web development work.
What Is an Addon Domain?
An addon domain is a completely separate website hosted within the same cPanel account. It has its own document root (a folder on the server), its own files, its own WordPress installation if you want one, and its own email addresses. From a visitor's perspective, secondbusiness.ca looks nothing like yourbusiness.ca - because it is an entirely different site.
Addon domains are useful when you want to host multiple distinct websites without paying for separate hosting accounts. A web designer managing sites for several clients, a business owner with two separate ventures, or anyone running a side project alongside their main website can use addon domains to keep everything under one hosting subscription.
Common use cases for addon domains:
- Running a second business website on the same account
- Hosting a separate blog or community site alongside your main business site
- Building client websites within an agency account
- Creating a separate e-commerce store with a different brand name
How to Add Each in cPanel
Adding a parked domain: In cPanel, go to Domains > Aliases (the name has changed in newer cPanel versions from "Parked Domains"). Enter the domain name you want to park. The domain must be registered and its nameservers must be pointed to your hosting account.
Adding an addon domain: In cPanel, go to Domains > Addon Domains. You will enter the domain name, and cPanel will automatically create a subdomain and a new directory where the site files will live. You can then upload files or install WordPress to that directory.
Subdomains vs Addon Domains
A subdomain is a prefix added to your existing domain: shop.yourbusiness.ca or blog.yourbusiness.ca. Subdomains live under your primary domain and are most commonly used to organize different sections of the same website. Addon domains are separate domain names that happen to be hosted on the same account - they are independent from your primary domain in every meaningful way.
Use subdomains when something is part of the same website. Use addon domains when it is a genuinely separate website that happens to share hosting.
How Many Domains Can Your Plan Support?
The number of addon domains and parked domains you can have depends on your hosting plan. Some entry-level shared hosting plans limit you to one domain, while others allow unlimited addon domains. Check your plan details in cPanel or your hosting account dashboard.
If you are regularly managing websites for others or running multiple businesses, look for a plan that specifically lists unlimited addon domains. dotCanada plans include support for multiple domains so you can grow without having to upgrade just to add another site.
A Note on SEO and Parked Domains
If you park multiple domains on the same site, search engines may see duplicate content. For SEO purposes, it is best to set up a 301 redirect so that one domain is the canonical version and all others redirect to it. Most cPanel setups allow you to configure this in the Redirects section. Your main .ca domain should be the canonical one for Canadian businesses.
