One of the practical advantages of a cPanel hosting account is the ability to host multiple websites under a single plan. If you manage a few different businesses, clients, or projects, you do not necessarily need a separate hosting account for each one. cPanel gives you two mechanisms for adding domains to your account, and choosing the right one depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
Addon Domains vs Parked Domains
Addon Domains are for hosting completely separate websites. Each addon domain has its own folder in your file system, its own WordPress installation (if applicable), its own email accounts, and its own web content. To a visitor, secondwebsite.ca is an entirely independent site - it has no visible relationship to your primary domain.
Parked Domains (also called Alias Domains) do the opposite: they point to the same website as your primary domain. If you park mybusiness.ca and mybusiness.com on your account, both addresses show the same website. This is useful when you own multiple variations of your domain name and want all of them to reach your site.
The decision is simple: if the additional domain should show different content, use an Addon Domain. If it should show the same content as your existing site, use a Parked Domain.
How Many Addon Domains Can You Have?
The number of addon domains depends on your hosting plan. Most standard shared hosting plans allow somewhere between 5 and unlimited addon domains. Check your plan details in your client area or contact support if you are unsure. If you regularly host multiple client sites, a plan with unlimited addon domains or a reseller hosting account may make more sense.
Directory Structure for Addon Domains
When you add an addon domain in cPanel, the system creates a new folder inside your public_html directory. For example, if your primary domain is myfirstsite.ca and you add mysecondsite.ca, cPanel will create a folder like:
/public_html/mysecondsite.ca/
All the files for the second website live inside that folder. This is straightforward but worth knowing because it means your two websites share the same disk space. If you are installing WordPress on the addon domain, you point the WordPress installer to that subdirectory.
The shared disk space also means you need to be mindful of backups - a single cPanel backup includes all addon domains, which is convenient, but large sites in your addon domain folders contribute to your overall disk usage.
Pointing a Domain from Another Registrar
If the domain you want to add as an addon is registered somewhere other than dotCanada, you need to update its nameservers to point to your hosting account before the addon domain will work. Log in to wherever the domain is registered and update the nameservers to the ones shown in your cPanel (typically something like ns1.dotcanada.ca and ns2.dotcanada.ca). DNS changes propagate within a few hours.
Once the nameservers are updated and propagated, cPanel will be able to resolve the domain and serve your website files from the addon folder.
SSL Certificates for Addon Domains
Every domain you add needs its own SSL certificate - both for security and because browsers display a warning for any site without HTTPS. The good news is that dotCanada's AutoSSL feature handles this automatically. When you add an addon domain, AutoSSL detects it within a few hours and issues a free Let's Encrypt certificate for it.
To check SSL status: in cPanel, go to Security > SSL/TLS Status. You will see all domains on your account and whether each one has a valid certificate. If AutoSSL has not yet run, you can click Run AutoSSL to trigger it immediately.
Parked domains also get SSL coverage automatically if you enable it, since they share the same certificate as your primary domain or are added to a multi-domain certificate by AutoSSL.
Multiple domains on a single account is a practical and cost-effective setup once you understand the two tools cPanel gives you. Addon Domains for separate sites, Parked Domains for aliases - and AutoSSL to keep everything secured without manual effort.
