Subdomain: what is it?

You may add a subdomain to your primary domain name. To organize and provide access to different parts of your website, subdomains are built. On your primary domain, you can establish as many subdomains or child domains as you like.

Consider this:

store.yourwebsite.com

The top level domain (TLD) in this illustration is ".com," the principal domain is "yourwebsite," and the subdomain is "store." You may choose any text for your subdomain as long as it's simple to type and remember.

Subdomains are utilised by businesses for a variety of reasons. Let's examine some of the most common uses for a subdomain.

Examples of Subdomain Use

A subdomain is most frequently used to create a testing or staging version of a website. Before releasing them live on the Internet, developers frequently test new plugins and upgrades on a subdomain staging site.

A subdomain is frequently used to establish an online store for selling goods and services. Because eCommerce sites often require a more complicated setup, businesses frequently desire a distinct subdomain to handle transactions. Additionally, we have observed businesses employ subdomains to create sub-sections of the website as well as mobile websites (m.yoursite.com) and sites tailored to certain regions (uk.yoursite.com).

WordPress may be set up on a subdomain and function independently of your primary website. You may use a subdomain like "guest.yourwebsite.com," "user.yourwebsite.com," and others to cater to a certain user base on your website. This is how online website builders like WordPress.com, Blogger.com, and others provide users with personalized webpages.

Subdomains are a great tool for more effectively organizing the material on your website. The right use of a subdomain has no impact on the SEO of your primary website. When in doubt, though, we advise staying on the same domain and refraining from adopting a subdomain for public websites.

Methods for Making a Subdomain

A subdomain is simple to create in your WordPress hosting account or domain registrar. In this example, we'll use Bluehost, our hosting provider, although the procedure is the same across all platforms. You need to sign into your web host account in order to establish a subdomain with Bluehost. After that, select the "Domains" option over on the left. This will provide a submenu with many choices.

After that, select the "Subdomains" tab from the list. Your domain name is in the field to the right of this screen. If your web hosting account simply has one domain, nothing will need to be changed. In the drop-down menu, if you have more than one domain, they will all be listed. "Yourdomain.org" is the sole domain used in our example.

Next, fill in the area on the right with a name for your new subdomain. You can input whatever you wish to utilise, such as a blog, gallery, or business. We'll use "demo" in this illustration. Click "Create" once you have entered the name of your subdomain.

Your new subdomain will appear at the bottom of the screen right away. Your domain name will now have your subdomain address in front of it. In our example, it changed from "yourdomain.com" to "demo.yourdomain.com". You'll see that the home folder box for your new subdomain immediately fills in with the correct information. Congratulations! Your first subdomain has just been established.

Subdirectories vs. Subdomains for SEO

Subdomains and subdirectories are seen differently by search engines. We'll examine the reasons behind this and how utilising a subdomain as opposed to a subfolder impacts SEO. Google and other search engines view subdomains as separate websites. This implies that each subdomain has to be crawled and indexed independently by search engines.

It's crucial to keep in mind that your domain and subdomains do not share the "link juice" generated by backlinks to your primary website. Building page rank for certain keywords on a subdomain is just as challenging as doing it on a whole other website. Subdomains should only be used when absolutely necessary. To rank for different keywords, for instance, or to focus on amay use a different language from that of your primary website, or reach a different address. Files that reside under your main domain are found in subdirectories.

Subdirectories share "link juice" and SEO with your domain because Google and other search engines do not treat them as independent websites. In comparison to utilising a subdomain, adopting subdirectories will help you rank your website more quickly for bloggers, new enterprises, or small businesses with limited time and resources.