How to Park a Domain in cPanel (Aliases Explained)

Overview

A cPanel parked domain — officially called an Alias in cPanel 78 and later — lets you map an additional domain name to your main hosting account so both domains show the same website. If someone types either domain into a browser, they land on the same content. No duplicate site to maintain, no separate hosting account needed.

The most common reason people need this: you’ve registered yourbusiness.ca and yourbusiness.com and want both to work without building two sites. It’s also useful after a rebrand, where the old domain should keep resolving while you transition traffic to the new one.

One thing that confuses a lot of users is the naming change. cPanel renamed “Parked Domains” to “Aliases” starting with cPanel & WHM version 78. The function is identical — just a different label in the UI. If your host is running an older version (check cPanel > General Information), you’ll still see the original “Parked Domains” label.

Prerequisites

• Active cPanel account on your hosting plan (shared, VPS, or reseller)
• A registered domain name you want to park — you must own it
• Access to that domain’s DNS settings (usually at your domain registrar)
• The domain’s DNS must be pointed to your host’s nameservers, or you’ll need to add an A record pointing to your server’s IP before the alias will resolve publicly
• DNS propagation can take up to 48 hours — plan accordingly if this is time-sensitive

Parked Domain vs. Addon Domain: What’s the Difference?

Before you start, make sure you actually want a parked domain and not an addon domain. They’re not the same thing.

• Parked domain (Alias): Points to the exact same website as your primary domain. Same files, same content. No separate document root.
• Addon domain: A fully independent website hosted on the same account. It has its own document root folder (e.g. /home/username/yoursecondsite.com/public_html) and can serve completely different content.

If you want two different websites under one hosting account, you want an addon domain, not a parked one. Our Shared Hosting plans support multiple addon domains depending on the tier you’re on.

Step-by-Step: How to Add a Parked Domain (Alias) in cPanel

1. Log in to cPanel. Your login URL is typically https://yourdomain.com:2083 or via the client area your host provides.
2. Navigate to the Domains section. In the cPanel home screen, scroll to the Domains section and click Aliases. On older cPanel versions (pre-78), this is labelled Parked Domains.
3. Enter the domain you want to park. In the Create a New Alias field, type the domain name — for example, yourbusiness.ca. Don’t include http:// or www.

   📝 Note: cPanel will automatically handle both the bare domain (yourbusiness.ca) and the www subdomain (www.yourbusiness.ca) once the alias is created. You don’t need to add them separately.

4. Click Add Domain. If everything checks out, you’ll see a success message. cPanel adds the domain to your account and creates the necessary Apache virtual host entry automatically.
5. Update DNS at your registrar. The alias is now configured on the server side, but the domain won’t resolve until its DNS points to your server. Log in to your registrar and set the domain’s nameservers to match your hosting account’s nameservers, or add an A record manually:
   Copied to clipboard

   # Example A record to add at your registrar's DNS panel
   # Replace 198.51.100.25 with your actual server IP address
   # You can find your server IP in cPanel > General Information
   
   Type: A
   Host: @
   Value: 198.51.100.25
   TTL: 3600
   
   # Also add a www record:
   Type: A
   Host: www
   Value: 198.51.100.25
   TTL: 3600

   ⚠ Warning: If you point nameservers to your host but the domain is registered at a different provider, any existing email MX records or other DNS entries will stop working. Make sure you replicate any necessary DNS records on the new nameservers before switching.

6. Verify the alias is working. After DNS propagates (usually 1–4 hours for most registrars, up to 48 hours worst case), test the parked domain in a browser. You can also check propagation status with a tool like dig from your terminal:
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   # Check whether the parked domain is resolving to the right IP
   dig yourbusiness.ca +short
   
   # Expected output: your server's IP address
   # 198.51.100.25

Optional: Redirect the Parked Domain to the Primary Domain

By default, a parked domain shows the same content without any URL redirect. Both domains just serve your site independently. If you want the parked domain to redirect to your main domain (so the URL in the browser bar changes), you’ll need to add a redirect rule.

You can do this in cPanel under Domains > Redirects, or add it directly to your .htaccess file:

# Add this to the top of your .htaccess file in public_html
# Replace yourbusiness.ca and yourbusiness.com with your actual domains

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?yourbusiness.ca$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourbusiness.com/$1 [R=301,L]

📝 Note: Use a 301 redirect (permanent) if you’re consolidating SEO authority to one domain. Use 302 (temporary) only if the redirect is genuinely short-term — Google treats them differently.

Common Issues & Troubleshooting

“Domain already exists on this server” error when adding the alias

This means the domain (or a subdomain of it) is already registered as an addon domain, main domain, or alias on any account on the server — not just yours. On shared hosting, this is a server-wide check. If you own the domain and it’s stuck on an old account, you or your host’s support team will need to remove it from the other account first. If you’re on a VPS and you’re the server owner, check WHM under Account Functions > List Accounts to locate which account holds the domain.

Parked domain shows a blank page or default cPanel placeholder

This almost always means DNS is propagating and the domain hasn’t fully resolved to your server yet. It can also happen if your server IP changed recently and cached DNS is still pointing somewhere old. Run dig yourbusiness.ca +short to confirm where the domain is currently resolving. If it’s pointing to the wrong IP, the DNS change hasn’t propagated yet — give it more time or reduce your TTL and try again.

The parked domain is resolving but showing a different site

If the domain resolves to the right IP but shows a different website, the Apache virtual host isn’t matching the request to your account correctly. This can happen on servers with multiple cPanel accounts when the alias wasn’t added cleanly. In my experience, the quickest fix is to remove the alias in cPanel and re-add it — this forces cPanel to regenerate the Apache config. If you’re on a managed VPS, contact support and ask them to run rebuild_httpconf on the server:

# Run as root on the server (WHM/VPS access required)
/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf
systemctl reload httpd   # or: service httpd reload

SSL certificate not covering the parked domain

This is annoyingly common and easy to miss. Adding an alias doesn’t automatically extend your SSL certificate to cover it. If you’re using AutoSSL (Let’s Encrypt via cPanel), go to Security > SSL/TLS Status and run AutoSSL manually. It should pick up the new alias and issue a certificate for it. If AutoSSL keeps failing for the parked domain, check that the domain’s DNS is fully propagated first — Let’s Encrypt’s validation will fail on an unresolved domain.

Parked domain not working for email

Aliases are for web traffic only — they don’t automatically set up email routing for the parked domain. If you need contact@yourbusiness.ca to work alongside contact@yourbusiness.com, you’ll need to configure separate email accounts or forwarders for the alias domain. Go to Email > Forwarders in cPanel and set up address-level forwarders from the alias domain to your primary domain’s mailboxes.

FAQ