What are subdomains, addon domains, and parked domains?

In addition to primary domains (such as example.com) you may come across the following related domain types:

• Subdomains
• Addon domains
• Parked domains

Let's cover each of these domain types in more detail.

Subdomains

A subdomain creates an additional site that can have its own unique content without the need to register an additional domain. (Some additional DNS configuration is still required, however.) Subdomains place a prefix in front of the domain name followed by a dot to create the unique name. For example, a complete, fully-qualified subdomain name is docs.example.com, where docs is a subdomain of the example.com domain.

Typical uses for a subdomain are to identify different types of content or functionality within one domain. For example, product sales at shop.example.com, a blog at blog.example.com, or a webmail portal at webmail.example.com. Subdomains are usually created in DNS using A or CNAME records.

Addon domains

An addon domain is an additional registered domain that is hosted in the same account as the primary domain. Addon domains can have their own unique content, and do not need to be related to the primary domain in any way.

With addon domains, you can host multiple domains from one hosting account. This includes separate websites, email addresses, forwarders, and more for each domain.

Parked domains (aliases)

A parked domain or alias is a registered domain that shows the same content as your primary domain.

Parked domains are often used to prevent others from using a domain name that is closely related to the primary domain (also known as “cybersquatting”). For example, a visitor going to the parked domain of example.net could see the content of the primary domain example.com, even though example.net appears in the browser’s address bar.

Related Articles

• Subdomains

• Adding new domains and subdomains in Plesk