How Multiple Domain Hosting Works

Hosting multiple domains on a single host is a very good way of reducing the costs of having multiple websites. So how does multiple domain hosting work?

Because a website is in effect only a folder you can create multiple folders under your website and make each folder the root of its own website.

For each website you register a domain name and point each domain to the appropriate folder. You now have multiple domains on a single host.

You should also be aware that many hosting providers can be configured to host multiple websites even though they don't advertise the fact.

If your hosting provider lets you choose which folder to point the domain name to, then it probably can be configured to host multiple domains by creating additional folders directly under the root folder.

Below we see the usual single domain name single host schematic where the domain name is configured to point to the root folder.

Now all web hosts allow you to create sub folders under the root folder to store images etc. Most sites use folders to store image files, scripts etc in a structure similar to the one below:

Website layout-2

However in order to support multiple domains your host has to allow you to associate a sub folder with another domain name.

Below you can see Multiple domain hosting on a single account using multiple domain names by using multiple folders under the root folder. Each of these folders ( website1,2,3 ) is in turn associated with a separate domain name

Each of these folders would in turn contain files and sub folders similar to our single site layout.

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