How to Create an Addon Domain in SiteGround (using cPanel)

If you plan to host multiple websites on SiteGround, you’ll need to learn how to create addon domains via cPanel. I’ll briefly explain how addon domains work, and then walk you through setting one up.

NOTE: This tutorial is based on SiteGround hosting, but it should be nearly identical for creating an addon domain in cPanel on any host.

What is an Addon Domain?

Addon domains are a function of cPanel. cPanel is software that many popular shared hosting companies (like SiteGround) use to allow you to manage multiple aspects of your website.

If you are only hosting 1 website with SiteGround (or any other hosting provider who uses cPanel), you don’t need an addon domain. Your account will be assigned a primary domain, and you’ll use this to setup & launch your website.

Addon domains only come into play when you want to manage multiple websites on the same hosting plan. Think agencies who host websites for their clients, reseller plans, etc.

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How to Create an Addon Domain in SiteGround’s cPanel

After logging in to your SiteGround user portal, look for the “My Accounts” tab.

Then click the button that says Go to cPanel.

Look for the section labeled Domains, and click Addon Domains.

Now you can enter the information associated with your new domain.

• New Domain Name: enter the domain you want to add (excluding the http://)
• Subdomain or FTP username: I recommend leaving this as the default that cPanel creates for you (but you can change it if you’d like)
• Document root: I also recommending leaving this as the default. If my domain was escapecreative.io, then all of the files associated with that website will be located in a /escapecreative.io/ folder.
• Password: create a secure password, or use the generator to create one for you. Enter it again to confirm.

Click the “Add Domain” button.

Technically, that’s all there is to creating an addon domain in cPanel. However, let’s talk about what else happens when you do this, as well as how to go about using this new domain.

A sub-domain is automatically created

Any time you create an addon domain, a sub-domain is automatically created for you. For example, if your primary domain is myprimarydomain.com and your addon domain is myaddondomain.com, you will automatically have the following sub-domain in your account:

myaddondomain.myprimarydomain.com

If you go back to your cPanel’s homepage, and click on “Subdomains,” you’ll see it listed there.

If you wanted to, you could create a new DNS record that points that sub-domain to your SiteGround server, and access your site that way. But you probably don’t want to do that. You created the addon domain so you could host an entirely new site on it’s own domain.

Read: What is DNS?

So let’s talk about how to do that.

Installing WordPress on Your New Addon Domain

You need to go back to your cPanel home. Then look for “WordPress” under the Autoinstallers section.

Once there, click the Install button.

You’ll be presented with a bunch of options.

The most important option is the 2nd one, labeled:

“Please choose the domain to install the software.”

This dropdown will include all of your addon domains, which you just created in the previous step. Choose the appropriate domain where you want to install WordPress.

For the remainder of the install options, please see this article on migrating WordPress to SiteGround.

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This should help you manage multiple domains on your SiteGround hosting account. If you have any trouble setting up an addon domain, I’ll try to help you out in the comments.