FayazMiraz

Remove sub-domain access from Addon Domain

Most of the shared hosting that allows hosting of multiple sites from a single hosting account (like Hostmonster, CirtexHosting etc.) has a common structure. You'll have one main site/domain and all the other sites/domains will be added as Add-on domains from cpanel. This way you can host multiple sites from a single hosting account. However, this approach has a problem. With each Add-on domain created from cpanel, you also automatically get a sub-domain (almost in all cases). Now, the challenge is to using the Addon domain, without the auto created subdomain.Since, most of the times, they enable this Add-on domain option in cpanel, by creating a sub-domain of the main site and then pointing that sub-domain to the newly created Add-on domain. So in a way, the Add-on domain is joined together with the subdomain, and doesn't work without it.

Problem Description: For example, you have registered your account with the main site named www.main-domain.com. Now you want to host another site, named www.another-domain.com, from the same hosting account. This can only be done using the Add-on domain option. When you add this new domain with the Add-on domain option, they will automatically create a subdomain of the main site (e.g. another-domain.main-domain.com). Now both the newly added domain (www.another-domain.com) and the sub-domain (another-domain.main-domain.com) will actually point to the same location; thus the web site content is accessible from both the addresses.

Now, you may not want this for multiple reasons:

1. You may not want other people to know that you run both the sites www.main-domain.com and www.another-domain.com and specially that you run www.another-domain.com as an Add-on domain of www.main-domain.com.
2. You don't want search engines to tag your site with two different addresses (www.another-domain.com and another-domain.main-domain.com), which may decrease your site's ranking for duplicate contents, divide your site's traffic and even worse - the sub-domain (another-domain.main-domain.com) may get better ranking than the original site (www.another-domain.com).
3. If you run Blog software like WordPress, your site will still be accessible from both the sub-domain and the main domain, But the sub-domain will send erroneous contents, which may carry a negative point to your site.
4. There can be many other unforeseeable reasons, But the main point is: You don't want people to visit one of your site as a sub-domain of another site.

Solution: I use an htaccess solution that works both in Hostmonster and CirtexHosting; And it should work in any other hosting site that allows .htaccess with mod_rewrite capability.

So if you have the same problem, then just put a .htaccess file in the Add-on domain directory with the following CODE:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} main-domain\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http\:\/\/www.another-domain\.com\/" [R=301,L]

</IfModule>

Note that, here, main-domain.com is the main site registered with your hosting account, and www.another-domain.com is the new domain you've added to the same shared hosting, using the Add-on Domain option.

Of course, you may already have an existing .htaccess file. For example, a tipical WordPress installation will have a .htaccess file with the following CODE:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

In that case just modify the .htaccess file with the following code:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} main-domain\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http\:\/\/www.another-domain\.com\/" [R=301,L]

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

Now, with this new .htaccess file, your new Add-on domain will essentially be visible from its original domain only. If anyone tries to access it with the sub-domain, then he will be redirected to the main domain. So the browser will always show your main site's address, instead of the sub-domain. Besides, with the new code in place, search engines will never tag your site with the sub-domain. So most likely, no one will even try to access your site with the sub-domain.

So, with this new .htaccess code, fell free to add as many Add-on domains as you like, with just one hosting account.

Also you might always want others to access your site as www.another-domain.com, instead of just another-domain.com. Since, to search engines, they are two different sites. So, it's always better to fix your site as either www.another-domain.com or another-domain.com.

So, now it's time to update the previous solution, to the one, that does both:

1. Removes the subdomain access from your addon domain.
2. Fixes your site to just one address: either to the one with www or to the one without www

Assuming that you'll use www.another-domain.com as your fixed site address, following will be the most optimized htaccess rewrite code to accomplish both the goals:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !www\.another-domain\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http\:\/\/www\.another-domain\.com\/" [R=301,L]

</IfModule>

Of course, just as before, for an existing WordPress installation (assuming you have default WordPress htaccess code), the code will look like:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !www\.another-domain\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ "http\:\/\/www\.another-domain\.com\/" [R=301,L]

RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Also, I'm not sure, but for some people (with multiple hosting from a single account), this Hostmonster KB article may also be helpful.

[This update is attributed to Mahbub vai, as he pointed out a similar solution in Hostmonster Knowledge base. Although code here is more optimized than that of Hostmonster Knowledge Base, still their code actually helped me thinking of a different approach; And from that different approach, I found this even better solution.]

Another blog post suggested a slightly different solution, which will allow to soft-link your addon-domain with the main site's sub-domain. That's a different solution, but not necessarily the correct one. Since, the main goal is to remove all sorts of soft-linking from the sub domain; and in essence, deny anyone to use your site from the sub-domain. So the bottom line is: it is always better if you remove the ability to soft-link any of your perma-links (e.g. a perma-link to a blog post) from the sub domain and force your user to use your site  from its original site address.