How to host a second website on one account

Many hosting plans allow more than one domain on a single account, each running as a completely independent website with its own files, its own folder, and its own address — not a copy of your main site, and not a subdomain of it, but a genuinely separate site that happens to share the same underlying hosting resources.

Check your plan supports it first

Not every hosting plan allows additional domains, and those that do often cap how many you can add. Check your plan's details or your control panel's domain section, which will usually show how many domains you can host and how many you currently have in use, before assuming the option is available.

Setting up a second website

1. Add the new domain to your account

   In the domains section of your control panel, add the domain you want to host. This registers it against your account internally, separate from setting up its actual DNS, which is a later step.

2. Give it its own folder

   When adding the domain, you will normally be asked which folder its files should live in. Choose a new, separate folder rather than the one your existing site uses — this is what keeps the two websites' files from mixing together or overwriting one another.

3. Point the new domain's DNS at your hosting

   Adding a domain to your account does not automatically mean the domain resolves there — its nameservers or A record still need to be set correctly, exactly as they would for any domain. See how to point a domain to your hosting if this domain is not already pointed at your account.

4. Upload the second website's files

   Upload the new site into the folder you assigned in step two, using the same method you would for any website — file manager, FTP, or however you normally deploy files to your account.

5. Set up SSL for the new domain

   A certificate covering your main domain does not automatically extend to a newly added one. Issue a separate certificate for the new domain through your control panel's SSL section, which is usually a short, largely automatic step once the domain's DNS is correctly pointing at your hosting.

How this differs from a subdomain

A subdomain — blog.yourdomain.com, for example — is still part of the same domain and usually still shares the same registration. A second, independently registered domain hosted on the same account is a different thing entirely: a completely separate domain name, potentially on a completely different extension, that just happens to share hosting resources with your other sites. See what a subdomain is if that is closer to what you actually need.

Does this affect your main website?

Not if it is set up correctly with a genuinely separate folder. Each site's files, and typically its database if it uses one, stay independent. What is shared is the underlying account resources — disk space, bandwidth allowance, and processing capacity all come from the same plan, so a second site does consume from the same pool rather than getting an entirely separate allocation.

What about email on the second domain?

Email is set up per domain, not automatically inherited from your main site. If the second domain also needs its own mailboxes, that is a separate configuration step in your control panel's email section, and its MX records need to be correct in DNS just as they would for any domain carrying its own mail. See how to set up email on your domain for the mailbox side of this once the domain itself is added and pointing correctly.

Planning the folder structure before you start

It is worth deciding your folder layout before adding several domains rather than after. A common approach is a top-level folder for each additional domain, named after the domain itself, kept clearly separate from whatever folder holds your original site's files. Getting this right from the outset avoids a messier reorganisation later, once each site already has its own files, database connections, and possibly its own developer or content editor used to a particular path.

Removing a second website later

If you need to take a second site down, remove the domain from your hosting account through the same section you added it in, and separately update its DNS if you want it to stop resolving here entirely rather than simply showing an error. Removing the domain from your account does not delete the domain's registration — that is managed with your registrar and is a completely separate matter.

If you are not sure whether your current plan supports another domain, or want help planning the folder structure before you start, contact our support team and we can talk through what fits your account.