Installling many wp sites in one hosting plan (namecheap)

Is it mandatory that the primary(1st) domain is installed in the root folder (/public_html) and then the add-on(2nd) domain in a sub-folder?

No. WordPress does not impose any limitations.

Can I install the 1st domain in a sub-folder too?

Yes.

do any files need to be in the root folder for the sites to work or it will contain only the sub-folders of each domain?

The latter.

What esmi has said is correct. Just remember that if you use sub folders, you need to type them in the URL also.

Example: https://www.abc.com/subsite1 and https://www.abc.com/subsite2

This would be assume the sub folders you created are named “subsite1” and “subsite2”

In order to prevent confusion (for the user) you could always make three sites. One in the root folder with a link to each of the sub folders, that way if someone doesn’t know the sub folder names they don’t get lost.

Do you that you want to set up separate domains or do you mean you want to set up multiple WP blogs in the same domain?

If you want separate domains, you first have to register those domain names and then point them to your hosting server.

I use MyDomains.com for hosting and the plan I have allows multiple domains under the same hosting plan. So I can have multiple domains in the same basic server directory structure.

Does yours?

I just reread you question and you are using the term “domain” and also “sites” –

I suspect you are trying to installed multiple “domains” under the one hosting plan you have purchaed.

The answers you have gotten so far are assuming that you want multiple WP blogs on the same domain when I think you mean a WP blog on each domain – is that correct?

Say your have registered two domain names: example.com and myexample.com

If you want a WP blog on each, you would be installed two copies of WP, one for each domain.

So, if you have multiple domain names registered and you want to put them under the same hosting plan – that is under the public_html directory – I recommend the following:

1 – make a directory under public_html for each domain. Use names that are meaningful, you could use the domain name without the ending — if the domain is https://www.example.com, use example. This would be referred to as the site or domain root. Doing this makes things much easier down the road for managing and updating things.

2 – Install a copy of WP in each of the domain roots or in a separate directory under the site/domain root. If you are going to have any pages on your sites other than the blog pages, you should install WP in a sub directory to keep things each to manage.

I dont want seperate blog pages. I want 2 different domain names.

@joshpe
What do you mean I have to type them in the url
wouldnt their url be https://www.example1.com and wwww.example2.com?

Let say I want those two above installed,

is it prefferable to install them like this:

example1.com — /public_html (example 1 wordpress install in root)
example2.com — /public_html/example2

or like this:

example1.com — /public_html/example1
example2.com — /public_html/example2

It is possible for you to have two root websites, but I think you require more than one WAN IP address, I might be wrong as I’ve never tried it that way personally. You would also have to give them different install directories (the public_html folder)

This is what I suggest and what I do personally.

example1.com --- /public_html (example 1 wordpress install in root)
example2.com --- /public_html/example2

I do this by creating the root website first, then the next website within its directory. I don’t know how this is done without anything other than Microsoft’s IIS, sorry.

I would only suggest option 2 if you are going to make 3 or more sub websites, because in that case you could make a root website with links to the sub sites in case anyone goes there on accident.

Also I +1 BobNwp’s comments

Well I might go for more than 2 sites. Hosting plan can take up to 10.
But I didnt quite get this part

I would only suggest option 2 if you are going to make 3 or more sub websites, because in that case you could make a root website with links to the sub sites in case anyone goes there on accident.

What do actually mean?