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Note: This posted was last edited on July 23, 2009...

OK, if you aren't new to this blog, you may have heard me mention once or twice that you can host unlimited web sites with just one hosting account at GoDaddy. However, I haven't explained how, which is what will be covered in this post. I decided to write this post after sifting through the keywords in Google Analytics and came across "godaddy install multiple wordpress". Whoever came here using that keyword probably left without the knowledge they were looking for. Hopefully that's not the case next time.

What Do You Actually Get From The GoDaddy Hosting Package?

I covered the features of the GoDaddy hosting package in a previous post but I will go over it again quickly here.

The package that I often recommend to anyone that is serious about making a start online is the 12 month Linux Deluxe Plan. With this plan you are automatically given a 5% discount for paying the year in advance. The cost would be $79.68 which breaks down to $6.64 per month. This purchase entitles you to a domain name for $1.99 which allows you to own the domain for 1 year. Any additional domains you buy GoDaddy usually charges around $10.00 depending on the type (.com, .org, etc.). The main features of the deluxe plan include:

• 150 GB Storage
• 1,500 GB Transfer
• 500 Email Accounts
• Unlimited Web Sites
• 25 MySQL Databases
• Unlimited Email Forwards
• $25.00 Google AdWords Credit
• $50.00 Microsoft adCenter Credit
• ...and more recently, $50.00 Facebook Credit

There are more features, but those are the most important. It's definitely enough reason to choose GoDaddy to buy hosting from.

Can You Really Host Unlimited Web Sites With GoDaddy?

Although it is a true statement that you can host unlimited sites, there are obviously some limitations. The storage quota, bandwidth quota and databases are shared by all of the sites. It would take a lot of sites to reach the storage limit and if you are at the point where the bandwidth isn't enough then you are probably getting enough traffic to your site(s) to justify stepping up to some dedicated hosting.

It is also worth mentioning a limitation with the email addresses. Your hosting account has a main domain name attached to it. The rest of the domains are sort of sub accounts. The 500 email addresses belong to the main domain. However, when you buy other domain names you are given an email account with them. Depending on what you are doing, one email address per domain is often enough. There are a couple choices for expansion. You are given some email forwards too. You can create a forwarding email address and when any email is sent to it, the email gets forwarded to the main email address that came with domain (or any email address for that matter). Or you can simply pay for some extra email addresses. But the point here is to keep costs down and not to pay for anything unnecessarily so try to work with what is already included, or even do as I've been doing lately, use a GMail email address for each domain.

Sharing A Database With Other WordPress Installations

If you plan to take advantage of your unlimited hosting accounts and go beyond 25 you will be fresh out of databases. What to do? Well, what I do is... I create a database with a generic name and use it for several niches. During the WordPress setup it asks for the table prefix. Give it a unique table prefix and point the installation to the generic database. WordPress will handle the rest. All of the data for the new install will share the database but have it's own unique tables so it won't interfere with the other data. No worries because MySQL can handle it, it was designed to handle several requests at once. Also, that is the way WordPress's Multi User version works, it shares one fat database for all of the blogs. One note of caution though, if you plan to sell the blogs at a later date, it may be best to keep the data in separate databases. You could run some SQL commands to pull the data from the proper tables out so it's really not a huge deal.

How Can You Stay Organized Having So Many Web Sites In One Account?

It might seem like it would be difficult to keep everything organized because you are dealing with so many files from multiple sites. What I do is create a folder in the root folder called "_sites". I put the underscore in there so the folder stays near the top of the list when sorted alphabetically. And then within that folder I create a folder for each site. I make the folder name the same name as the domain. Now when I want to add files to any installation I just FTP to the main domain, open the _sites folder and find the site I want to work with and go from there. It's much easier because you don't have to handle multiple FTP accounts because normally you would need one per site. Creating the folder isn't enough to actually have the site pointed to that location when browsing. You have to tell GoDaddy what domain you want pointed where. Follow the steps below to do that.

How Do You Point Domains To The Right Place When Dealing With Unlimited Web Sites At GoDaddy?

First of all you should have purchased hosting at GoDaddy and attached your main domain to your hosting account. Then you should create the "_sites" folder as described above. Then...

• Login to your GoDaddy account.
• Choose the 'Hosting' option under 'My Products' on the left side.
• Choose the 'Manage Account' option under 'Control Panel'.
• Choose Settings, Domain Management.
• Click the 'Add Domain' button.
• Begin typing the domain name in the 'Domain' box, it should show up in a filtered list, click on the domain from the list.
• Click the 'Browse...' button and locate the folder where you want the domain to point to (likely "/_sites/domain.com")
• Click 'OK'.

Now, if you have an "index" file in that folder, or the WordPress installation files perhaps, you should be able to browse that domain and pull up the index file to your site or blog, etc. It may take a few minutes for GoDaddy to point the domain to that folder after following the steps above though. Just hit 'Refresh List' on the 'Domain Management' screen until you see 'Setup' under the 'Status' column.

Good luck... any questions, just ask.

Related posts:

1. Host Unlimited Web Sites With GoDaddy Deluxe Plan, Plus Get $125 In Ad Credits
2. Blog Series – From Setup To ? – Part 2a – Quick-Installing WordPress with GoDaddy
3. How Do I Setup A Database On GoDaddy And Find The Host Name?
4. Curious How To Look At Your MySQL DB Structure At GoDaddy?
5. Should A New Affiliate Get Dedicated Hosting?

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