03 Nov 2026
cPanel Guides
Updated 06 Nov 2026
Files and Domains in cPanel: File Manager, Addon Domains, and Subdomains
Part three of our cPanel series. Files and domains sound technical, but both come down to one idea: everything has its folder. Learn the folders once, and cPanel stops feeling mysterious.
Start with File Manager, under Files. It works like the file explorer on your computer, except it shows the files on your hosting account. The one folder that matters most is public_html. That folder is your website. When someone visits your domain, the server shows them whatever is inside public_html. An index file there becomes your homepage; images and pages sit beside it in folders you create.
The everyday jobs are simple. To put files up, open public_html, click Upload, and drop them in. To fix a typo, right-click a file and choose Edit — small text changes take seconds and need no software on your computer. To tidy up, create a folder per purpose: images, downloads, old-pages. Two cautions. First, never rename or delete files your website system created unless you know what they do — one missing file can blank a WordPress site. Second, download a copy of anything important before you edit it. If the edit goes wrong, you can put the copy back in a minute.
Now domains. Your main domain was set when your hosting was created. Everything else is organised around it. A subdomain is an address in front of your domain, like shop.yourbusiness.lk or students.yourschool.lk. It can hold its own separate mini-site, and it costs nothing extra to create. Use subdomains when the content belongs to the same business but deserves its own space: a store, a client portal, a Sinhala or Tamil version of your site.
An addon domain is a fully separate website — a second domain name with its own site — running from the same hosting plan and the same cPanel. Our Business plan supports up to 5 websites this way, and Enterprise supports unlimited sites (https://kdjhosting.com/hosting). Each addon domain gets its own folder, so the sites never mix. This is how one hosting account can run your company site, your side project, and a client site side by side.
Redirects finish the picture. Under Domains, the Redirects tool forwards one address to another — handy when you change a page name or move from an old .com to your new .lk address, so visitors and Google land in the right place instead of an error page.
A practical rule for Sri Lankan businesses: one addon domain per business, subdomains per branch of that business. Your restaurant group gets one domain per restaurant only if they are truly separate brands; otherwise use subdomains or simple pages. Fewer moving parts means fewer midnight surprises.
Next in the series: business email — creating addresses like [email protected], reading mail in webmail, and forwarding messages to the phones your team already carries.
Next: Business Email in cPanel
https://kdjhosting.com/news/cpanel-email-accounts-webmail-forwarders
Start here: What Is cPanel? A Beginner\u2019s Guide for Website Owners
https://kdjhosting.com/news/what-is-cpanel-beginners-guide
Start with File Manager, under Files. It works like the file explorer on your computer, except it shows the files on your hosting account. The one folder that matters most is public_html. That folder is your website. When someone visits your domain, the server shows them whatever is inside public_html. An index file there becomes your homepage; images and pages sit beside it in folders you create.
The everyday jobs are simple. To put files up, open public_html, click Upload, and drop them in. To fix a typo, right-click a file and choose Edit — small text changes take seconds and need no software on your computer. To tidy up, create a folder per purpose: images, downloads, old-pages. Two cautions. First, never rename or delete files your website system created unless you know what they do — one missing file can blank a WordPress site. Second, download a copy of anything important before you edit it. If the edit goes wrong, you can put the copy back in a minute.
Now domains. Your main domain was set when your hosting was created. Everything else is organised around it. A subdomain is an address in front of your domain, like shop.yourbusiness.lk or students.yourschool.lk. It can hold its own separate mini-site, and it costs nothing extra to create. Use subdomains when the content belongs to the same business but deserves its own space: a store, a client portal, a Sinhala or Tamil version of your site.
An addon domain is a fully separate website — a second domain name with its own site — running from the same hosting plan and the same cPanel. Our Business plan supports up to 5 websites this way, and Enterprise supports unlimited sites (https://kdjhosting.com/hosting). Each addon domain gets its own folder, so the sites never mix. This is how one hosting account can run your company site, your side project, and a client site side by side.
Redirects finish the picture. Under Domains, the Redirects tool forwards one address to another — handy when you change a page name or move from an old .com to your new .lk address, so visitors and Google land in the right place instead of an error page.
A practical rule for Sri Lankan businesses: one addon domain per business, subdomains per branch of that business. Your restaurant group gets one domain per restaurant only if they are truly separate brands; otherwise use subdomains or simple pages. Fewer moving parts means fewer midnight surprises.
Next in the series: business email — creating addresses like [email protected], reading mail in webmail, and forwarding messages to the phones your team already carries.
Next: Business Email in cPanel
https://kdjhosting.com/news/cpanel-email-accounts-webmail-forwarders
Start here: What Is cPanel? A Beginner\u2019s Guide for Website Owners
https://kdjhosting.com/news/what-is-cpanel-beginners-guide
