Hostgator Addon Domain Redirecting to Primary Domain Subdirectory

Question

This is for a client so I won't share exact domains but the problem is as follows..

I took over development of a website from a prior developer.

The hosting is Hostgator Business.

The primary domain is primary.com. There is an addon domain addon.com.

The primary domain document root is /home1/username/public_html. The addon's document root is /home1/username/addon.com.

www.addon.com had a WordPress installation which the developer had edited instead of using plugins to achieve his goals. The site also needed a complete redesign so I felt it logical to simply wipe the installation and replace it.

So, I deleted all of the WordPress files and uploaded a new copy of WordPress from wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Prior to deleting the old installation, the domain loaded files from it's document root perfectly.

After uploading the new installation instead of resolving to addon.com it is instead resolving to primary.com/addon.com

I've never seen this happen before so I'm lost. There's no errors in any available logs.

All file permissions are correct.. I've triple-checked.

I've tried deleting all files and creating simple index.php and index.html files to see if it would access them ... it doesn't.

This happens in each browser I use on Windows and Linux.

I don't understand it because all I did was swap out the old WP install for a new one.

I went and re-uploaded the old WordPress installation so everything is 100% how it was but it is still going to primary.com/addon.com instead of addon.com.

Has anyone faced this issue before? I usually use Bluehost but even when I've used Hostgator in the past I've never seen this happen.

I double-checked the addon domain settings as well as anything else I could think of and everything appears normal.

I even deleted the addon domain and re-added it with the document root of /home1/username/addon.com and it still goes to primary.com/addon.com in the browser.

I submitted a ticket with Hostgator but they have not replied yet.

I'm sorry if this is long. This is my first time asking for help on here and I wanted to be sure I included everything I could.

Answer 1

Hostgator finally got back to me.

The previous developer had used the one-click WordPress install.

Apparently once someone uses a one-click install the only way it works is if you keep using the one-click install/you cannot do it manually any more.

From all the servers and sites I've setup this makes no sense and is a problem with Hostgator. Support did not really tell me anything other than "you have to use the one click install since the prior developer did". Great service.

Hope this saves someone some hassle.

Answer 2

From this it sounds like you were moving a WordPress site from the primary domain to an add on domain.

Simply moving the files from the primary to the add on domain will not make it work on the add on domain because in the database and throughout the coding of the WordPress site it would all be configured and coded for the primary domain.

It sounds like you would need to update the site home and site url from the primary to the add on domain url. http://support.hostgator.com/articles/specialized-help/technical/wordpress/wordpress-home-fix

Also I would be suggest using a search and replace type plugin to go through all the internal coding to update the urls and links to the add on domain.

There is more information here as well http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress