There is always some confusion when it comes to the difference between addon domains, sub domains and parked domains.
Addon Domains
An addon domain is just like having a separate web site. The addon domain will be hosted or pointed to a folder in your public_html folder of your main-domain.This can be done from your cPanel. The Addon domain needs to be a registered domain and the nameservers should point to the same nameserves as your main-domain.com.
Let's say your addon domain is addondomain.com
There are 3 ways of accessing an addon domain:
1. http://www.addondomain.com
2. http://www.main-domain.com/addondomain
3. http://addondomain.main-domain.com
Accessing the addondomain.com will display the domain name in the address bar of your browser, so it appears just like a separate web site. In fact to the outside world you cannot tell the difference! An addon domain will share the space and bandwidth allotted to the main domain. However an addon domain will have its own FTP access, its own email accounts, and web stats.
Sub Domains
A sub domain does not have its own domain name. A sub domain points to a folder in your public_html directory of your main domain. Let's say your main domain is " http://www.maindomain.com" and you have a folder "support" under your public_html directory. You can create a sub domain http://support.maindomain.com. You can directly reach the support page by accessing http://support.maindomain.com.
Parked Domain
A parked domain is one which simply points to an existing domain. It is a domain which is parked "on top" of the main domain. Let's say you have a domain named "http://www.parked.com" which is parked on top of "http://www.maindomain.com". If you go to http://www.parked.com it will be redirected to the http://www.maindomain.com and you will get the same page as you see while accessing http://www.maindomain.com
Parked domains are good if you would like to point a few websites to your main domain that are slightly misspelled. Even if people do not spell your domain correctly they will still be able to find you.
| Addon Domains | Parked Domains | |
| Main domain appears in the address bar | Yes | No |
| Separate Logs | Yes | No |
| Separate Stats | Yes | No |
| Treated as a separate domain | Yes | No |
| Separate email addresses | Yes | No |
