Create and manage Parked Domains in cPanel

A guide on how to park and redirect a parked domain in your cPanel web hosting control panel

You must first log into your cPanel hosting control panel - if you have lost or forgotten your username and/or password, you must email support and ask for the details (lost passwords will mean a password reset).

Note: Before you proceed, you must ensure that you have registered the domain that you want to park, and change nameservers to those specified in your welcome email (if you need to know those again, please contact support quoting your main domain name). When you add a domain using the Parked Domains feature in cPanel, it creates settings to send requests for that parked domain to the domain, folder or file that it is parked on unlike sub and addon domains (see also the difference between addon, parked and sub domains in our forum).

Once you park a domain you will find that by default parked domains will point to your public_html folder of your main domain (the web folder for your main domain). So, if you do not wish your parked domain to display your main site, you need to manage redirection to point it to the location you want (see below). If you leave it to point to your main domain then visitors to the parked domain will see the main domain's content but with the parked domain's URL in the address bar. Redirection for parked domains will result in the content of the other page, folder or web site being displayed together with the URL of the other site in the address bar.

Okay first things first, let's park the domain. Once logged into cPanel, we will proceed with parking a domain ...

Parking a domain video tutorial...

How to park a domain

First, click on the Parked Domains icon in the Domains section

Once at the Parked Domains page, we'll see the first section titled Create a New Parked Domain, this is where we will provide the details of the domain to be parked. In the entry box provided enter the domain name with its tld extension (i.e. using the example in the video tutorial above, we enter hankiscool.com - note there is no http or www!). Now simply click the Add Domain! button.

You will now arrive at a confirmation page to let you know that the domain has been parked, remember though that by default cPanel has parked this domain onto your public_html folder of your main domain so it will show the content of that site. Now click the Go Back button to manage or add further parked domains.

Note: If you get a failure message, then please ensure that you are parking a domain which you have already registered and have set the nameservers for the domain to ours. If you have done so, it could be that the registration of the domain or the change in nameservers has not yet propagated the internet, this can take up to 48 hours but is usually completed within an hour or two (depending on the quality of the registrar you are using. If this does not resolve the issue, please contact support with details of your main domain and the domain that you wish to park.

Managing Parked Domains

Whilst at the Parked Domains page, we can manage any domains that we have already parked. The options are removal or manage redirection, both links are to the far right under the Actions column.

Removal is self explanatory and does exactly that - removes the parked domain.

Manage Redirection allows us to point the parked domain to any particular folder, file or web site of our choosing. By default (when adding the parked domain as detailed above) parked domains will point to your public_html folder (the web folder for your main domain). So, if you do not wish your parked domain to display your main site, you need to click on the Manage Redirection link to go to the Parked Domains Redirection page to point it to the location you want ...

Redirecting to an addon domain

If you want to park the domain onto one of your already added addon domains (see Addon Domains Video Tutorial for more) then enter the full URL of the addon domain (i.e. http://www.addon-domain.com).

Let's say for example that you want to park parked-domain.com onto an addon domain called addon-domain.com. You would simply enter http://www.addon-domain.com. This will result in all requests for parked-domain.com showing the web site at addon-domain.com in the visitor's web browser together with theaddon-domain.com's URL shown in the address bar.

Redirecting to a folder or file

You can redirect your parked domain to any folder or file in your hosting, be that your main or any sub domain (but not an addon domain).

Let's say for example, you have a web page on your main domain (main site) and its location is main-domain.com/file1.php. To redirect the parked domain to that file, we would need to enter /file1.php, or if the location was main-domain/folder/file1.php then we would need to enter /folder/file1.php. This method will not work for addon domains though, in that instance we need to enter the full address to the folder or file, such as http://addon-domain.com/file1.php or http://addon-domain.com/folder/file1.php. In either case, the parked domain will display both the other site's content and URL in the address bar.