JTAN Multi-Domain HOWTO

One of the great things about JTAN, especially ProWeb, is how easy and economical it is to serve multiple domains with one account. Even with ProShell there are many choices. JTAN is also very flexible in how we support your domains. We don't force you to do it "our way". Because we support so many different kinds of hosting, and ProWeb is so flexible, there often is some confusion about what "transferring a domain to JTAN" means, exactly.

The purpose of this page is to help reduce the confusion about domain hosting at JTAN.

The Basics

Much of the confusion is about terminology. People say the words "transfer my domain" and mean very different things by them. A better choice is to speak accurately about the components of hosting a domain, which are:

Domain Name Registration from a registrar
Domain Name Service from a DNS Server
Mail Service from a Mail Server
Web Site Service from a Web Server

If you think you know what these are and which of them you need, then you will have a very easy time understanding how we offer support for multiple domains. If, on the other hand, you aren't quite sure how the four aspects listed above relate to each other, I recommend that you read this page first, then come back here.

OK, now that we are all on the same page with registration, DNS, mail, and web service we can talk about what JTAN offers.

Domain Support Options

When you want to host another domain at JTAN, several questions must be answered to determine exactly what you need. Do you need domain Registration or would you like to transfer Registrars? Is the site merely a DNS pointer or an alias of your main site or does it serve fully independent content? Is mail needed? It also matters if you have ProWeb or ProShell.

Full Domain Support Packages

For a new, independent site on a new domain with its own unique web content, you need everything: Registration + DNS + Mail + Hosting. To add such an independent site from scratch you should select the "Registration, Free DNS, and Premium Web Site" package from the "Full Listing" link on your Members page. The price is currently $49.95/yr for ProWeb. Under ProShell, the price is $69.95/yr and you select the similar bundle. These bundles include mail service as well; whenever you get DNS from us, mail comes with it for free.

Aliases for Clone Sites

If you want to add another new domain that will serve the identical web page as some other domain you already have, you still need registration and DNS support for the domain, but you don't need to add a whole new web site. What you want in this case is a web site alias. These are free for ProWeb customers, and are also sold in bundles with DNS and/or registration if you need that. Under ProShell, you can buy an alias for $8 per year.

ProWeb customers can also add "domain pointers" for free using DNS and a dedicated IP. The idea is that you have a "default" page hosted on your dedicated IP and you direct www.someotherdomain.com to that IP. This is done using DNS "A record" pointers for free. You can still host other "non-default" web pages on that IP, along with all the domains you have "stacked" on the default. This sort of configuration is not possible under ProShell because ProShell uses shared IP hosting.

Web Site Forwarding

JTAN also offers the Web Site Forwarding feature for $8/yr or free to any ProShell or ProWeb customer. The Web Site Forwarding feature allows you to forward your domain name to any web page on the Internet without using a dedicated IP. All you need to do is point your domain name to our parked server, parked.jtan.com. Then when you setup Web Site Forwarding in the Members Area, you will be able to enter the address that you want to forward your domain to.

Hosting without Registration

Like many companies, JTAN offers domain registration. Our registrar services are described in some detail here. Thus, you can use JTAN registration in a convenient bundle with DNS and Site service as described above. But some customers need registration to be separate, not handled by JTAN.

Back in the dark ages of the Internet, everybody registered their domains with Network Solutions. Hosting companies never did registration for customers. Consequently, there are a lot of web sites where the DNS and Web Hosting is done by a hosting company, and the registration is at Network Solutions.

When the registration business was opened up so that anybody could be a registrar, people would shop around for the cheapest registration service. So, again, a lot of sites have their registration held at a different company than where their site is hosted.

Therefore, if you already have the domain registered and you want to keep the registration where it is, but you want JTAN to host the site and run DNS nameservers for the domain, you need a partial bundle with just DNS+Site service. To get this, ProWeb customers should select "Extra Web Site and Free DNS" from the full listing of services on the members page. The price for this bundle $32/yr. ProShell customers would need to pay $59.95 for this same Site+DNS bundle.

A La Carte

JTAN also can provide Registration, DNS, Mail, and Web Hosting as totally independent services. This way, you can put together whatever parts you are missing. For example, maybe you like to register your domains for $1 at CheapDomains.com, but need nameservers. Under ProWeb, name service is free, so you can get DNS from us. There are actually 7 different sets of the three services (Reg, DNS, Web, Reg+DNS, Reg+Web, Web+DNS, Reg+DNS+Web) that we offer separately. We can provide any of these to you.

Multi-Domain Economics

You might have noticed that the domain service bundle pricing for ProWeb is always lower than ProShell. In some cases (e.g. DNS) service is free under ProWeb. Consequently, if you host a lot of domains, even though the basic charge for ProWeb is higher than ProShell, it will be more economical to host your multiple domains under ProWeb.

Where is the breakeven point? This depends on a lot of factors. If you need aliases and DNS more than sites and registration, then it could be as early as just 3 domains. More typically 4-5 domains is when we would recommend going with ProWeb in order to save money on multiple domain hosting.

Is there anything cheaper than ProWeb for hosting multiple domains? Yes! Our economy dedicated servers are $79/mo and can host an unlimited number of domains with no extra charges per domain. Typically if you are hosting over 25 domains, it will be cheaper to host them on a dedicated machine. You will also get better performance for your sites, and not need to worry about disk quota limitations.