Redirect and Park: useful domain functions in cPanel

People often use the terms “park” and “redirect” interchangeably, but they are two different things:

• Park is a function of a DNS entry, whereby the DNS zone for the “parked” domain resolves to the same location as the original domain (the one to which the parked domain will point.)
• Redirect is a function of .htaccess, often used for temporary redirection to another location or permanent redirection when moving a site.

Park and Redirect are two methods of having one domain lead to another domain. Each is useful but for different things. It depends upon what you’re trying to do.

cPanel

With WebHostingBuzz reseller hosting, VPS hosting, or dedicated server, there are many options for domain management within cPanel. You are able to use both Park and Redirect, depending upon your needs.

Park

If maindomain.com contains your web site, you can use WHM or CPanel to park parkeddomain.com “on top of” maindomain.com.

Then, when visitors enter parkeddomain.com in their web browsers, they will see the maindomain.com site pages. But, their browsers will still display the domain “parkeddomain.com” in the address/location field.

You may repeat the parking process to park multiple domains all pointing to the same maindomain.com.

Most WHM/CPanel servers are configured to allow parking only to domains on the same server.

Park Example

For example, if the site has a page at maindomain.com/products/glop.htm, when a visitor enters parkeddomain.com in the browser and navigates to the same page, the visitor will see parkeddomain.com/products/ glop.htm in the browser’s address/location field.

Redirect

With a Redirect, you may point one domain to another domain. Redirect means that a visitor’s browser first resolves to one address and is then sent to another. The visitor enters one domain in the browser, and ends up at a different domain.

Redirect Example

maindomain.com contains the web site. Create a Redirect redirecting extradomain.com to maindomain.com.

Then, when a visitor enters extradomain.com in the browser, the browser will be redirected to maindomain.com and its web site. The browser’s address/location field will show the domain “maindomain.com”.

Manage multiple domains

Park and Redirect are useful tools for managing domains. Multiple domains may be pointed to target web sites, according to your needs and what you want your visitors to see.