What Are Subdomains and URLs?
Subdomains are ur ls for different Sections of your website use your the main domain name and a prefix for for example if your domain is website com a Sub domain might support dot website Com.
Subdomains Explained in More Detail
You use your primary domain name and A prefix to denote a separate section of Your website and when we say to separate the section we mean that in the most literal Sense possible subdomains are treated as Complete separate entities by search Engines.
So blog elegant themes calm Would be seen as a completely different Website as elegant themes calm slash Block.
What About WordPress Sub Domains?
As such word press subdomains are Actually separate installations there Are a number of reasons that this could Be helpful to you as a site Administrator.
How to Create a Sub Domain?
Let's quickly cover how to create a Subdomain we're going to use c panel Because it's pretty ubiquitous across Most platforms and web hosts if you Don't run c panel you might have to Contact your host support or just check Documentation.
So now that we're here in C panel we're just gonna scroll down to The domain section and here we already Have a button for subdomains.
If you have Any subdomains created you'll just Scroll down and see them on a list right Here for us we don't have any configured So we're gonna scroll back up and create One right now.
The first field is what we Want our subdomain to be so for this Example i'll just type blog and then if You have multiple domains you would have To select it from here in this situation We're using the c panel demo and so our Domain would be c panel com.
The document Root is where all of the files will be Located on your server.
And again we Don't want this to blend in with our Actual website because they are two Different sections so you can choose Something simple like the actual sub Domain or if you would like to specify a Little bit deeper you could do so.
Once We're done with that we're gonna go Ahead and just click create of course We're in demo mode so this isn't Actually going to create a sub domain.
But just like that we would now have Access to our brand new sub domain with That covered.
When Did I Want to Use Sub Domain?
Now let's talk about when To actually use a sub domain there are a Number of Use cases where a sub-domain is the Perfect option for your site there are also a number of cases where using a sub-domain is not ideal this includes.
You Don't Want to Use a Sub Domain For?
- Landing pages
- Blogs
- Temporary promotional
- Static pages
- You wouldn't Use a subdomain for any of these because Their constituent parts of your website.
Using a Subdomain Is Great for Things Like?
- Login Page
While word press Defaults to slash wp-admin as its login You can disable that and set it to login Dot website com.
Which is a quick and Easy way to prevent some brute-force Attacks and malicious logins because it Simply doesn't show up in searches for Your brand.
- Demo and Development Sites
Demo and development sites You can use a subdomain with word press To either create a staging site a Development site or even a demo site.
You Sure wouldn't want your standard organic Traffic showing up there if you set up a Demo website calm for a client with an Unfinished feature.
The last thing you Want is for your regular users to find It and tinker with it and get put off.
- Internal Blogs
Internal blogs if you have a company Culture of professional development you Might have a professional development Website calm that's not meant for your Users.
- External Platforms
External platforms one of the top Reasons to use a subdomain is to Separate development from word press Itself.
Let's say you run an e-commerce Store on a non-word press platform such As Shopify that store has nothing to do With the installation of the top-level domain Of word press.
But everything to do with Your brand itself the development team Is potentially separate with different Bugs and workflows and project timelines So setting up the shopify store as a Subdirectory could be a little hacky.
That's why subdomains work so well the Two are linked by top-level domains but Separated as necessary and regarding seo You can always 301 redirect website.Com Slash store to the store website calm And keep things flowing smoothly in Every direction.
And finally Multiple locations or instances of the Brand okay here's an example using Wordpress.com which is a wordpress Multi-site installation.
Each new user is Given a sub domain off of wordpress.Com Like matt's blog wordpress.Com in most Other ways they're unrelated this Principle can be applied at too many Brands if you run a restaurant or store That has multiple locations.
You may not Want your santa fe store showing up with Your nashville location plus there would Be no reason for those users and staff To be working off the main site.
WordCamp for example uses this strategy splitting different camp organization teams into subdomains with unique sites SEO users and designs the brand top-level domain unites them but separate web sites and teams aren't jumbled together.
We hope that this has cleared up some of The confusion about what a sub domain is And when you want to use it the general Rule is that you use a subdomain for Specific reasons that need to be for one Reason or another separate from the main Domain.
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