Just bought a new domain and thought this would be a good opportunity to show those who are new to self hosting the simple way to add a new domain to their account.
I host with Bluehost and have been with them since the day I started my first self hosted site. There have been numerous horror stories about Bluehost floating around the Net but then, which hosting company do not? All hosting companies have their nemesis. Most of the time it is due to the complainants own doing and ignorance.
I too have asked some very noobish questions when I first started. I do not even know what a nameserver was, but Bluehost has been very responsive and helpful. One thing I have learned though is, never jump the gun too early and start accusing your Host of bad services and everything. There is something called the “knowledgebase” in all reputable web hosting sites and most of the answers can be found there.
In most cases, hosting companies expects you to have some knowledge about web hosting when you are matured enough to host your won sites. Their response to your tickets will also be based on this assumption. Do not expect them to lead you by your nose, so it is your responsibility to read up and have some basic ideas before firing away.
Of course there too are many smaller hosting companies which are one man shows and their services could be really terrible mainly due to shortage of resources and manpower. Most of these operates as a third party re-seller so they are dependent on their own host for support in case anything goes wrong. So the advise is, stick to those that are reputable and established, like Bluehost.
Right then, if you already have a hosting account, have a site or blog running in that account and you want to add in a new blog, you can do it in 2 simple steps. Bluehost accounts allows you to add unlimited domains to your account so you can add as many as you want.
Addon domains are better than sub-domains as it carries the top level domain name. All you Addon domains will be yourdoman.com. A sub-domain will mean yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com. Just like what you see in blogspot.com. So if you have a hosting account which allows you to add in domains, use the Addon domains instead of the subdomains feature.
Assuming that you have registered your domain name and have set your nameservers pointing to Bluehost.
Login to your Bluehost Control panel and click on Addon Domains.
It will bring up this window.
Use the option that says – Use a domain that is not already associated with your account.
Type in your new domain name. If your nameservers has been set, Bluehost will verify it. After this point, all other options are automatically set for you. You normally do not need to change anything. See image above if you are unsure.
Click Add Doman. You will be taken to your Domain manager, give it a few seconds for Bluehost to gather some information and your addon domain is ready for use. If you log in via FTP, open your public_html folder, you will see another folder with your new domain name or the name that was given when you added the domain in the previous step. If you want another WordPress blog, that is where you load the WordPress files. You will need to create a new database first, of course, but let’s leave that for another post.
Okay, you added a domain, but you left out the part where you have to have the nameservers point to it. Unless, of course, your domain is furnished by Bluehost and it’s automatic — but I don’t know, I never used Bluehost.
But I am,
Did I miss that?
Hi Alex,
This article tells you exactly that.
If your web host allows you add on domains, then you just add your domains in the public_html folder which holds all your original wp files for your original blog. A new folder or a directory or a dir, if you prefer, is the same thing.
However, some smaller web host DO NOT allow add on domains, then sorry, you can’t do anything.