Domains & Hosting

Subdomains

What is it

Subdomains are domains that are a part of a larger domain. Taking the file analogy we used earlier in this course, if your domain is a folder, then a subdomain is a folder inside of it. In fact, the only domain that is not a subdomain is the root domain. For example course.exam.com is a subdomain of exam.com which is in turn a subdomain of com which is the root domain. As you may have noticed subdomains are all separated by a ‘.’. So a subdomain is just a another domain.

So what does this mean for you as a designer. The reason that it is relevant is while it is a part of your main domain, if you set up a subdomain on it, you can create an entierly new site on your subdomain. So, say I run a property management site and I have a WordPress instance on my main doamin myco.com where I feature all of my properties. Well, while I decide to feature all of my properties on the main site I still want each property to be completely separate from the others. I want them to have their own look and feel, with their own functionality, and maybe I want my property managers to be admins for their property but not any of the others. I would use subdomains to accomplish this. If I made a subdomain for each property I could have a different WordPress instance on each, with their own themes, plugins, and users. Essentially each is its own separate site but they are all still connected under my main domain.

How to set one up

Now the question is how do I set one up. The answer is, it will depend on who your hosting provider is and what services you or your client have with them. Some services or packages may require you to pay to add a subdomain, and others may let you create them for free. The process to create them will also probably be different depending on what hosting provider you are using, however, they will all be relatively similar. You will simply need to look for a tool (either under a specific domain or in the C-Panel) that says subdomains and you should be able to figure it out from there. Below we will demonstrate how to do so in the C-Panel with SiteGround.