---
title: Running multiple sites on a single domain
related:
  - https://docs.kentico.com/k9/configuring-kentico/managing-sites/setting-up-multiple-websites.md
  - https://docs.kentico.com/k9/configuring-kentico/managing-sites/setting-up-multiple-websites/configuring-nested-websites.md
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

This page describes how to run multiple websites in separate sub-folders on a single domain. In this scenario, you do not need to obtain new domains for each site.

## Example - Installing two sites onto a single domain

1. [Install](https://docs.kentico.com/k9/installation/installing-kentico-custom-installation.md) a Kentico web project to the following folder: **C:\inetpub\wwwroot\kenticofolder**.

   - In the installer, choose **Custom installation** and **Built-in web server in Visual Studio** (does not create a virtual directory).
2. Open your **Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager** console (_Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager_).
3. Create a new virtual directory named **kenticoweb**.
   - The name of the virtual directory must be different than the folder where you installed the web project.
   - Set the **Physical path** to a non-website folder in the root of a local disk. Ideally, create an empty folder for this purpose, for example: _c:\empty_
4. Create two IIS applications under **kenticoweb** named **web1** and **web2**.

   - Set the **Physical path** of both applications to the web site folder of the installed project (**C:\inetpub\wwwroot\kenticofolder\CMS** in this example).
   - Set the application pool according to the type that you specified in the installation of the Kentico web project.
5. Open your browser and type in either **http://localhost/kenticoweb/web1** or **http://localhost/kenticoweb/web2**.
6. Log in to the Kentico administration interface and open the **Sites** application.
7. [Install](https://docs.kentico.com/k9/configuring-kentico/managing-sites/installing-new-sites.md) both sites. Set the **Site domain name** fields:

   - Website 1: **localhost/kenticoweb/web1**
   - Website 2: **localhost/kenticoweb/web2**

Now when you go to **<http://localhost/kenticoweb/web1>**, you will see website 1. If you go to **<http://localhost/kenticoweb/web2>**, you will see website 2.

### Synchronizing global data for the sites

To ensure the synchronization of settings and global objects between the two sites, you need to set up a [Web farm](https://docs.kentico.com/k9/configuring-kentico/optimizing-website-performance/setting-up-web-farms.md) environment.

1. Add the following keys to the __ section of the **web.config** file in the installation directory shared by both websites:

   ```html

   <add key="CMSWebFarmEnabled" value="true"/>
   <add key="CMSWebFarmSynchronizeFiles" value="false" />
   <add key="CMSAllowLocalConfigKeys" value="true" />

   <add key="/kenticoweb/web1:CMSWebFarmServerName" value="server1" />
   <add key="/kenticoweb/web2:CMSWebFarmServerName" value="server2" />

   ```

   > **Info:** These keys enable web farms in general and disable synchronization of files, which is not needed since the applications already use the same physical folder. Notice that each application has a different web farm server name specified via a prefix in the name of the **CMSWebFarmServerName** key. This prefix must match the path that you set for the corresponding application in IIS, including the virtual directory.
2. Log in to the Kentico administration interface on one of the sites.
3. Open the **Web farms** application.
4. [Create a web farm server](https://docs.kentico.com/k9/configuring-kentico/optimizing-website-performance/setting-up-web-farms/configuring-web-farm-servers.md) for each application.
5. To prevent potential problems with conflicts during [Smart search](https://docs.kentico.com/k9/configuring-kentico/setting-up-search-on-your-website.md) indexing, specify a different physical folder for each application's search index files through the following web.config keys:

   ```html

   <add key="/kenticoweb/web1:CMSSearchIndexPath" value="App_Data\CMSModules\SmartSearch\Web1\" />
   <add key="/kenticoweb/web2:CMSSearchIndexPath" value="App_Data\CMSModules\SmartSearch\Web2\" />

   ```

Your websites should now work without any issues.