How to handle multiple domains on one hosting account?

October 27, 2005 10:06 PM

I plan to purchase a few domain names, and each domain would show a different web page when visited. How can I manage that without subscribing to a separate web hosting package for each domain?

It's only one web page per domain, so I'd like to look at a viable solution instead of buying multiple web hosting packages.

posted by arrowhead to technology (20 comments total)

Lots of hosting providers let you host many domains within one account. Dreamhost, in particular, lets you have unlimited domains and subdomains.
posted by b1tr0t at 10:09 PM on October 27, 2005

You would need a hosting package that offered support for multiple domains. I do this through Dreamhost.
posted by rhapsodie at 10:09 PM on October 27, 2005

i am with ipowerweb.com, and you can buy multiple domain names, and have each one point to a different folder. so you could have whatever.com point to /whatever, anothersite.com point to /anothersite, and so on.
posted by deadmouse at 10:17 PM on October 27, 2005

Can also do it through VizaWeb. Pretty much all the big players offer it. Look around for a package that suits your specific needs and price point.
posted by qwip at 10:45 PM on October 27, 2005

I also do this at Dreamhost.
posted by dobbs at 11:15 PM on October 27, 2005

What if I already have a hosting account with a provider, and they don't support multiple domain pointing to different folders? I'm looking for a work-around :-)

Thanks in advance.
posted by arrowhead at 11:24 PM on October 27, 2005

Presently, I host 21 domains at Dreamhost. Couldn't be happer.

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posted by Independent Scholarship at 11:30 PM on October 27, 2005

What if I already have a hosting account with a provider, and they don't support multiple domain pointing to different folders?

Find another host. Really, there's no excuse not to host multiple domains.

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posted by Independent Scholarship at 11:32 PM on October 27, 2005

Forward the domain to a page on your existing web site. This isn't ideal but it should work, assuming your domain registrar offers that option. You should be able to keep the destination URL hidden so visitors only see the forwarded domain name.
posted by mtonks at 12:07 AM on October 28, 2005

Another thing to keep your eyes open for when shopping for hosting is a Reseller account. The idea of having a big pile of domains traditionally has been the realm of a Reseller, who buys hosting in bulk, and resells it. Reseller accounts allow generous storage and transfer allowances, and multiple domains. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SELL ANYTHING TO GET ONE! You can get a reseller account and use it to hold your multiple domains.
posted by websavvy at 3:48 AM on October 28, 2005

Forget web hosts entirely. For this low volume - one page per domain, you say - register the domains at DirectNic and choose Bannerless Hosting of any of the pages for $15 per year. There is a bandwidth limit, but then you buy additional chunks of bandwidth as needed.
posted by megatherium at 5:17 AM on October 28, 2005

insiderhosting.com does this too - they give you different packages depending on how many domains and how much space you need.
posted by divabat at 6:05 AM on October 28, 2005

I'm at InsiderHosting, and will probably be switching soon, possibly to Hosting Zoom, which gives you five Gb for 6 domains for $4.95/mo. if you prepay. Insider isn't offering anything near that competative price wise.
posted by Scoo at 6:32 AM on October 28, 2005

you could just point them all to different directories, like /site1 /site2
posted by chuckforthought.com at 8:00 AM on October 28, 2005

Here is a work around without getting into the code. You could have a script in your index page check the Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME") if it equals yoursecondarydomain.com or www.yoursecondarydomain.com then you can redirect to yoursecondarydirectory/. This will look seemless to most users and transport them to www.yoursecondarydomain.com/yoursecondarydirectory/ every time.

Your isp probably won't appreciate this cheat but thats why god made warnings.
posted by linklog at 10:01 AM on October 28, 2005

you're looking at "addon domains." generally any good host will give you unlimited addons. you configure the domain at the registrar's end to point to the host's nameservers, and then, typically, configure the addon domain at your host's end to redirect to a subdomain. you'll usually get URL masking, so even though DOMAIN2 is pointing to SUBDOMAIN.DOMAIN1.COM, it will be accessible (and display) as DOMAIN2.com... it will just have all its files in a subdir of your original domain.

if your host doesn't allow this, switch hosts.
posted by poweredbybeard at 10:14 AM on October 28, 2005

I can't pass up a chance to put in a good word for my web host, PHP Webhosting, which allows multiple domains pointing to different directories of one user account, and many other nice things as well. Switch!
posted by macinchik at 10:18 AM on October 28, 2005

If your current host doesn't allow different pages for each domain, you could always hack something up with PHP to parse the requested domain and redirect to an appropriate page. Of course, it'd be far easier to just get a new host.
posted by neckro23 at 10:27 AM on October 28, 2005

I have used PHP Webhosting for years as well and their pricing is great. However I would add that their customer support response for major issues is dismal; on multiple occassions I have had many days of downtime (which happens) but no response to any kind of communications about it (unacceptable). However it was hard to argue with the features for the price. Competition these days makes that a little less compelling, but at the same time this issue hasn't occured again in the last 2 years.

I recently bought a lifetime hosting deal from textdrive that includes many additional hosts. They are a little more raw, however, but they offer Rails hosting so I accepted it. My short term plan is to dump my 1and1 and phpwebhosting accounts and move everything over there in order to get out from under monthly fees.
posted by phearlez at 11:28 AM on October 28, 2005

I, too, use phpwebhosting (and I've yet to have a problem with them after several years), but since they only switched to the multiple domain/directories recently, I've been using this PHP code as my index.php to direct people to the appropriate content for my multiple domains:

<?php
if (strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'], "site1.com")) {
include('site1index.php');
}
elseif (strstr($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'], "site2.org")) {
include('site2index.php');
}
else {
include('site3index.php');
};
?>
posted by fidelity at 2:00 PM on October 28, 2005