This KB article will explain the difference between primary and additional domains (known as domain aliases). It will also instruct you on the mapping of the primary and additional domains on the Cloudways Platform.

A domain is the name of the website or URL. As we know, computers communicate using IP addresses over the internet, which is a series of numbers, e.g. 192.168.0.XX. A website domain is also called a hostname, and the domain points to a specified IP address. Domain names or hostnames are comparatively easy to remember than a bunch of IP addresses, so it becomes easy for a user to navigate to a particular website.

A domain name can be a combination of letters and numbers (in some cases, hyphen (-)) as well as extensions such as .com, .net, .co, etc. (e.g. cloudways.com).

Important

A domain name is registered through Domain Registrar first, and then it can be used. No two websites can have identical domain names.

Primary Domain: Primary domain is the root domain that is set first to be pointed to the specified IP address — for instance, example.com.

Subdomain: A subdomain is the subset of the existing primary domain. Subdomains are used to navigate and organize the different sections of your website, and most developers use them for the testing environment where they test various plugins, and work on development before taking the site live — for instance, store.example.com. The subdirectory of the same example will be example.com/store.

Tip

Subdomain also refers to child domain or leaf domain. A subdomain is a domain with a prefix. A subdomain can be used to host additional sites or an additional part of the root domain.

Additional Domains/Domain Aliases: Additional domains refer to alias website names that you want your application to respond to. These can be subdomains as well.

Cloudways provides you with complete freedom to manage and map your domains the way you want, and here are a few simple steps to help you map primary and additional domains using Cloudways Console.

The primary domain is used for accessing the website that has been made live from the Cloudways server. Adding a domain under this option will set the base URL/home URL in the database for your application, and additional domains refer to alias website names, so Click Here to learn about mapping the primary and additional domains (aliases) and adding DNS records accordingly.

That’s it! We hope this article was helpful. If you need any help, then feel free to search your query on Cloudways Support Center or contact us via chat (Need a Hand > Send us a Message). Alternatively, you can also create a support ticket.