• BBgmoro

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Get found
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
          Moz API

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. Research & Trends
        3. Algorithm Updates
        4. Confused About Addon Domains and SEO

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Confused About Addon Domains and SEO

        Algorithm Updates
        2
        5
        3914
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • annasusmiles
          annasusmiles last edited by

          I find addon domains really confusing. Everyone I've asked so far says that they don't affect SEO but I find that really hard to believe considering the same content is on both a subdomain and a subfolder and also has it's own unique domain. PLUS (in my case) completely different niche sites are sharing the same hosting.

          I really don't want to pay for hosting for all of my different sites but at the same time, if it's better/safer to do so for Panda/Penguin reasons I'm happy to do that.

          Thank you for your time. I look forward to your opinions/suggestions!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • annasusmiles
            annasusmiles @annasusmiles last edited by

            Thanks again Zach!

            Are you saying that in my htaccess I should be forwarding addon.maindomain.com and maindomain.com/addon to addon.com?

            OR is it more complicated/involved than that.

            I'll def get a developer to do this for me, but I just want to make sure I know what I'm telling them to do and why.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • deltasystems
              deltasystems Subscriber @annasusmiles last edited by

              The virtual host is what tells your web server (Apache) basic details about your website. Where to find it (path), where to store error logs, the domain name, and so forth.

              Unfortunately you will need a developer to do something for you if you aren't too sure about how to go about the process, and especially if you aren't familiar with Linux platforms.

              I'm not suggesting to get a hosting account for every domain -- addon domains are perfectly fine. Just make sure you are redirecting correctly (whether through .htaccess or through cPanel config). I had well over 100 addon domains many years ago when I still used cPanel 🙂

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • annasusmiles
                annasusmiles @deltasystems last edited by

                Thank you Zachary. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer this question for me.

                Can you (or anyone) please clarify what it means to "edit the virtual hosts on the server directly". I'm not really sure what it means and I don't know how to do it either.

                Also, are you suggesting that it's just easier/better to get a complete hosting account for every single domain name?

                deltasystems annasusmiles 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • deltasystems
                  deltasystems Subscriber last edited by

                  I'm assuming you are using cPanel? You are able to enable redirection within your panel. (I haven't seen this issue outside of cPanel)

                  Ideally, you are right, you shouldn't have mirror content up. If you can edit the virtual hosts on the server directly that would be another option.

                  annasusmiles 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • RizwanAkbar

                    Is it a good idea to 301 redirect one same niche site towards another site for seo benefit

                    Hello friends, I have 2 android niche sites, one site is running on a technology dropped domain i catch 1 year ago it has, almost 400+ domains linking to different parts of the site, the other one i established from scratch and both are running from jan 2015. Now i want to redirect first site which already has 400 links pointing towards it to the home page of my 2nd android site. Is it a good idea to do so and does it give any boost in terms of seo?

                    Algorithm Updates | | RizwanAkbar
                    0
                  • TommyTan

                    How Additional Characters and Numbers in URL affect SEO

                    Hi fellow SEOmozers, I noticed that a lot of websites have additional characters and words at the end of the URL in addition keyword optimized URL.  Mostly for E-Commerce sites For example: www.yoursite.com/category/keyword?id=12345&Keyword--Category--cm_jdkfls_dklj  or wwww.yoursite.com/category/keyword#83939=-37292 My question is how does the additional characters or parameters(not necessarily tracking parameters) affect SEO? Does it matter if i have additional keywords in the additional stuff in the URL (1st url example)? If you can provide more information, that would be helpful. Thank you!

                    Algorithm Updates | | TommyTan
                    0
                  • Superflys

                    Sub-domain or sub-directory for mobile version

                    sub-domain or sub-directory for mobile version advantages or dis-advangages?

                    Algorithm Updates | | Superflys
                    0
                  • thealika

                    Will Parked Domain hurt My SEO as Duplicate Content?

                    Hello, I have one website (Migration Lawyers) and I have an extra 8 domains Parked so they are basically cloning the content of the site. so if the main site is:  migrationlawyers.co.za and I have an addon domain  migration-lawyers.com  is that good or bad? is there a proper way to redirect the sites, will redirecting (301) subdomains be more effective? Thanks for your Input 🙂 0i8VXqr.png

                    Algorithm Updates | | thealika
                    0
                  • Chaits

                    Non .Com or .Co Versus .ca or .fm sites - In terms of SEO value

                    We are launching a new site with a non traditional top level domain . We were looking at either .ca or .in as we are not able to get the traditional .com or .co or .net etc . I was wondering if this has any SEO effect ? Does Google/Bing treat this domain differently .Will it be penalized ? Note : My site is a US based site targeting US audience

                    Algorithm Updates | | Chaits
                    0
                  • FFTCOUK

                    Does the use of an underscore in filenames adversely affect SEO

                    We have had a page which until recently was ranked first or second by Google UK and also worldwide for the term "Snowbee".  It is now no longer in the top 50. I ran a page optimization report on the url and had a very good score.  The only criticism was that I had used an atypical character in the url.  The only unusual character was an underscore "_"    We use the underscore in most file names without apparent problems with search engines. In fact they are automatically created in html files by our ecommerce software, and other pages do not seem to have been so adversely affected. Should we discontinue this practice?  It will be difficult but I'm sure we can overcome this if this is the reason why Google has marked us down. I attach images of the SEO Report pages 8fDPi.jpg AdLIn.jpg

                    Algorithm Updates | | FFTCOUK
                    0
                  • RonSparks

                    What's better .NET or a hyphenated.COM domain

                    What's better .NET or a hyphenated .COM domain I know this is simple but in selecting a domain for my current project and I only have two options. firstname-lastname.COM or 
                    firstnamelastname.NET I'm leaning to the .COM as after reading the how to choose a domain name post. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name Thanks

                    Algorithm Updates | | RonSparks
                    1
                  • sarenausa

                    What are the good strategies using satellite sites in SEO??

                    Hello to everybody, We'are thinking about launching a massive amount of satellite websites in order to promote our website. Is it really efficient in terms of link building? Or is the ROI really small due to the amount of time and money needed to create and manage these websites? Thanks a lot!!! Update: Thanks to all of you for all these interesting answers!

                    Algorithm Updates | | sarenausa
                    1

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.