How to Add a Domain in cPanel

This guide adds a second domain, such as example.org, to a cPanel account whose main domain is example.com. It covers pointing the domain to your hosting, the Domains interface of current cPanel versions, the choice between a separate website and an alias of your main site, SSL for the new domain, and redirects.

Before you start

Check your plan first. On our offshore web hosting, SSD Starter is a single-domain plan for one website, and SSD Enterprise has unlimited domains. To host more than one domain on an account, you need SSD Enterprise. That applies to aliases too (the same website under a second domain). If you're on SSD Starter and need another domain, contact our team.

You also need a registered domain. cPanel can't register a domain or renew its registration: you do that with your registrar. If you registered the domain with LyraHosting, you manage its nameservers, DNS records and renewals in the client area, next to your hosting.

Point the domain to your hosting

Visitors only reach the new site once the domain's DNS leads to your hosting, and the automatic SSL check described below needs the same. Do it in one of two ways:

• at your registrar, set the domain's nameservers to the nameservers of your hosting. You then manage the domain's DNS records in cPanel » Domains » Zone Editor;
• keep your DNS where it is, and point the A records of example.org and www.example.org to the IP address of your hosting account.

If you don't know which nameservers or IP address to use, open a support ticket and ask. A DNS change can take two days or more to reach every nameserver on the internet, so make it early.

Add the domain in cPanel

cPanel's documentation no longer lists separate Addon Domains and Aliases interfaces: you create both kinds of domain, and subdomains, in one place.

1. Log in to cPanel and open cPanel » Domains » Domains.
2. Click Create a New Domain.
3. From version 132, cPanel asks which type of domain you want: choose Registered Domain. Earlier versions don't ask.
4. Enter the new domain in the Domain box, for example example.org.
5. Choose whether to share the document root, as explained in the next section. cPanel fills in the other boxes, and its documentation recommends keeping those values.
6. Click Submit.

A separate website or the same website

The Share document root checkbox decides what the new domain shows:

• clear it for a separate website. cPanel creates an addon domain with its own document root, a folder inside public_html such as public_html/example.org. Upload the new site's files to that folder;
• leave it selected for the same website. example.org then shows the same content as example.com. cPanel calls such a domain an alias, formerly a parked domain.

cPanel's documentation describes a shared document root as permanent, and you can't change the folder of a domain that shares the main domain's folder. Decide before you click Submit.

SSL for the new domain

Both of our web hosting plans include free SSL certificates, which you manage in cPanel. When you add a domain, cPanel first tries to cover it with an existing certificate, and creates a self-signed certificate if there is none. If AutoSSL is enabled for your account and the server allows it, cPanel also requests an AutoSSL certificate for the new domain and installs it when it arrives.

AutoSSL only includes names that pass a domain control check, so the domain must point to your hosting first. To see where things stand, open cPanel » Security » SSL/TLS Status. Its filters show unsecured domains and domains with AutoSSL problems, such as a domain that doesn't resolve to an IPv4 address on the internet. The standalone SSL/TLS Status page has a Run AutoSSL option to start a new attempt; the Status tab of the combined SSL/TLS Certificates page hides AutoSSL actions.

Once the domain has a valid certificate, turn on Force HTTPS Redirect for it in cPanel » Domains » Domains, so visitors who type http:// end up on the HTTPS version. The toggle only works for a domain with a valid certificate, and it doesn't appear for aliases. To use a certificate you bought instead, see how to install an SSL certificate in cPanel.

Redirect a domain to another address

To send the visitors of example.org to example.com instead of showing a site, open cPanel » Domains » Redirects:

1. Choose the type: Permanent (301) for a lasting move, or Temporary (302), for example while a site is down for maintenance.
2. Select example.org in the domain menu. Leave the box after the slash empty to redirect the home page, or enter a path such as directory/file.html to redirect one page.
3. In Redirects to, enter the full address with its protocol, for example https://example.com.
4. Choose how to treat the www. prefix. Redirect with or without www. covers both forms of the address.
5. To redirect every file to the same path on the new domain, so that example.org/pic.jpg goes to example.com/pic.jpg, select Wild Card Redirect.
6. Click Add.

You can't edit a redirect: delete it and create it again. Browsers cache redirects, so you may need to clear your browser's cache to see a change. cPanel adds its redirect rules at the end of the .htaccess file. Some applications, such as WordPress, only read their own section of that file and may ignore those rules; for such a site, cPanel's documentation suggests writing the redirect into .htaccess by hand.

Remove a domain

In cPanel » Domains » Domains, click Manage next to the domain, then Remove Domain, and confirm. cPanel removes the domain's web server and DNS entries but keeps its folder and files. The domain's email accounts disappear from the list while their mail stays on the server, and they come back if you add the domain again. Make a full backup before you remove a domain. The main domain can't be removed.