Unlimited Domain Hosting - Is It Really Unlimited?
Unlimited domain hosting is so popular now that it has practically become a staple of the industry for most hosting packages. For those intent on creating many websites this may seem like a great feature to have but there are a few things that need to be understood about how it really works before you launch into creating your web empire.
Unlimited domain hosting usually works by creating unlimited subdomains under one “parent” domain that you register your account with. If you registed your account with “domain1.com” then any other addon domains you have will actually be referenced as “domain2.domain1.com” and while you’ll still be able to access “domain2″ from “domain2.com”, you’ll also be able to access it from “domain2.domain1.com”. Also, your addon domains may be referenced from a directory within your public_html directory and if the root of your public_html directory is attached to “domain1.com”, then “domain2″ is also accessible from “domain1.com/domain2/”. This can become an issue for several reasons.
If you are an internet marketer or you simply have several websites that you do not want associated with one-another, it may be possible to type “site:domain1.com” into Google and have one of your competitors find out all of your subdomains and therefore all of your websites. Some web hosts will block this from happening but you should check with their support staff before you register. You could also register a “dummy” domain name that you do not intend to put a full website on and use htaccess and robots.txt in order to block robots from indexing the directory and block users from accessing it.
The only other way to absolutely block this possibility is to use a dedicated server for your hosting so that your add on domains are neither subdirectories of the domain you registered your hosting with, nor will the domain you registered with be assigned to the root of the public_html folder.
Although you may be able to ask your web host to assign a directory such as “public_html/domain1/” for the domain you registered with and combined with htaccess you could block the “domain1.com/domain2/” access. You wouldn’t be able to block the “domain2.domain1.com/” access with this method however.
The interactivity between your domains may not be an issue to you if you are not an internet marketer or have an interest in e-commerce but it is definitely worth looking into if either of these avenues are something you intend to pursue.
