I've been using my parked domains as, simply, an easy way to share one host among four domains.

I have 4 websites, so small they easily fit on one hosting space. (In fact, I can't find a smaller hosting space!) Thus, one is hosted there, and the other three are parked. The 4 websites have absolutely nothing in common (except my authorship).

(The way I do it is, for the parked domains, they have "url-masked-forwarding," or "frame-forwarding" as I have heard it called, to specific files on the main root...)

Having looked through the threads here and elsewhere, I see that parked domains are more commonly used for alias purposes, and that SEO for my parks is pretty much out of the question.

Is this true? Is SEO hopeless, until I acquire separate hosts for each of the parked domains?

You could try setting the domains up as addon domains instead of parked domains.

You could try setting the domains up as addon domains instead of parked domains.

Addon and parked domains are two seperate things all together. Addon domains are used for having a multiple websites under one hosting account. Parked domains are such that you can go to domainA or domainB and still get to the same website.

As for the SEO stand point, I am really not sure what would be your best bet for that actually. I have a few domains parked on a couple of websites so I'm going to have to check into this more and see what I can find out. When I hear something I will post back to this thread and let you know what I find out.

I was about to leap in to add-on-domains for my parkers...but I will await your advice, build-a-host!

So far, the following happens, which I find no longer acceptable, but makes perfect sense when I finally thought about it! Entering the parked domain's name on the search bar yields information from the main domain's index.htm...

... and it's very difficult for one of my limited knowledge to set up robots.txt and .htaccess and all that arcane stuff, to get proper SEO for all four domains living in one spot.

(I have the robots.txt tutorials bookmarked, but meanwhile, perhaps getting site positioning should come first...hence this post.)

One of the parked domains is particularly "lively" and deserves (as Rodney Dangerfield might put it?) "more respect".

ok from the terminology being bandied about you're talking "cpanel" rather than "internet" :P

in that case, "parked" is really designed for alias of the main site - so you have the same content shown at multiple domains - most commonly where you own the .com/.co.uk and want them both the same.

for keeping separate content then you'd normally be expected to use "add-on" domains which create sparate httpd.conf entries

but for best seo/inclusions in the results you want to either get a reseller account so they are truly hosted separately or you'll find the results between the sites can get confused, and if google sees the same content on
abcdefgh.com/dir/page.htm and anotherdom/page.htm it will penalise the one it indexed 2nd

Yes, it is cpanel, and I FINALLY found their help file, describing what an add-on really is, as you said. So I need to get a separate host (IP) for this one...I will

Thanks, all you experts, for your advice

you dont need a separate IP for each site, you need a separate *account* :) for each or use add-ons and suffer the search engine issues

you dont need a separate IP for each site, you need a separate *account* :) for each or use add-ons and suffer the search engine issues
Is not a separate IP what a separate account will yield?

for this particular website

I disagree with the need for WHM/resellers account. In cPanel, when you create an add-on domain, the only penality you're looking at is the fact you'll have two ways to access the site, namely from your original domain name, and your new one. Let me explain: let's say you've got one website, example.com. Now let's say you want to use an addon domain of sample.com. The only possible penality you'll get is the fact that sample.com can be accessed from these three URLs:

http://www.example.com/sample/
http://www.sample.com/
http://sample.example.com/

But really, this is no big deal. A little bit of code in your .htaccess file in your /sample/ folder will insure that anytime a bot or a person tries to access http://www.example.com/sample/ or http://sample.example.com/ they will be redirected to http://www.sample.com

^And with that in place, there is no duplicate content penalty, and thus, no need for reseller hosting/WHM. I've been doing it like this for years and only my domain name version gets indexed.

...and, as a result, I may wait a bit. (Mom's pacemaker is going in, so I have to wait, anyway, groan, sweat, sweat:eek:

I disagree with the need for WHM/resellers account. The only possible penality you'll get is the fact that sample.com can be accessed from these three URLs:

http : // www . example.com / sample/
http : // www . sample . com /
http : // sample . example . com /


Hi jquidlen. Do those 2 other domains
http : // www . example . com / sample /
http : // sample . example . com /

exist as a by-product of using Cpanel on a shared host?
Any way to turn that off proactively, instead of dealing with it after the fact with .htaccess?

Also I notice those 2 software programs in your signature? Are you the author?

I am wondering if they have value for someone like me who already understands CMSes and knows how to find/install various wordpress plugins. I am all for time savings in fact I am trying to save time now automating setup on 200+ domains. Please see my other thread

http : // www . webhostingtalk . com / showthread . php?p=4737064#post4737064

Sorry if it is deemed i have taken the thread off course.