diff --git a/docs/topics/settings.rst b/docs/topics/settings.rst
index 9d780b66d..7c52dd66a 100644
--- a/docs/topics/settings.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/settings.rst
@@ -286,14 +286,14 @@ Example::
 
     COMMANDS_SETTINGS_MODULE = 'mybot.conf.commands'
 
-.. setting:: CONCURRENT_DOMAINS
+.. setting:: CONCURRENT_SPIDERS
 
-CONCURRENT_DOMAINS
+CONCURRENT_SPIDERS
 ------------------
 
 Default: ``8``
 
-Maximum number of domains to scrape in parallel.
+Maximum number of spiders to scrape in parallel.
 
 .. setting:: CONCURRENT_ITEMS
 
diff --git a/scrapy/conf/default_settings.py b/scrapy/conf/default_settings.py
index 17f976c65..0fd87cf6d 100644
--- a/scrapy/conf/default_settings.py
+++ b/scrapy/conf/default_settings.py
@@ -24,10 +24,10 @@ CLOSEDOMAIN_ITEMPASSED = 0
 COMMANDS_MODULE = ''
 COMMANDS_SETTINGS_MODULE = ''
 
-CONCURRENT_DOMAINS = 8
-
 CONCURRENT_ITEMS = 100
 
+CONCURRENT_SPIDERS = 8
+
 COOKIES_DEBUG = False
 
 DEFAULT_ITEM_CLASS = 'scrapy.item.Item'
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/webconsole/spiderctl.py b/scrapy/contrib/webconsole/spiderctl.py
index e266053ef..9719d12f0 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib/webconsole/spiderctl.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib/webconsole/spiderctl.py
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ class Spiderctl(object):
                 (len(self.idle),
                  len(self.scheduled),
                  len(self.running),
-                 settings['CONCURRENT_DOMAINS'],
+                 settings['CONCURRENT_SPIDERS'],
                  len(self.finished))
         s += "<tr>\n"
 
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/manager.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/manager.py
index b55777675..16ca38be0 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/manager.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/manager.py
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ class Downloader(object):
     def __init__(self):
         self.sites = {}
         self.middleware = DownloaderMiddlewareManager()
-        self.concurrent_domains = settings.getint('CONCURRENT_DOMAINS')
+        self.concurrent_domains = settings.getint('CONCURRENT_SPIDERS')
 
     def fetch(self, request, spider):
         """Main method to use to request a download