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Subdomain: What Is A Subdomain & When To Use It? https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/when-to-use-subdomains/
If you’re a fledgling site owner, (https://www.a2hosting.com) you might not know that you can use a single domain to set up multiple
How to Find and Grow Your Audience (In 3 Steps)
websites. We’re not talking about separate pages, but full blown websites running side by side on the same domain.
(https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/grow-your-
audience/)
There are two ways to accomplish this, by using ‘subdirectories’ or ‘subdomains’. From a technical standpoint, both approaches work Marketing | Dec 05, 2019
much the same way, but we prefer subdomains since they offer a cleaner look.
A Quick Guide to Email Marketing Automation
In this article, we’re going to talk about what subdomains are and why you should use them. Then we’ll discuss a few of the situations (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/email-
marketing-automation/)
where it makes sense to do so, before teaching you how to set up (and use) a subdomain of your own. Let’s get to it!
Email Marketing | Dec 03, 2019
Blogging (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/blogging/)
(27)
Development (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category
Subdomains are a great way to separate areas of your site with very different functionalities. /development/) (101)
Domains (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/domains/)
(24)
Subdomains enable you to set up multiple websites using a single domain. Take a look at our client area for example – you’ll notice its eCommerce (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category
URL is my.a2hosting.com. In this case, we’re using the my subdomain through our normal URL, which enables us to set up a hosting /ecommerce/) (24)
management panel alongside the rest of our site. Marketing (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/marketing/)
(119)
News (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/news/) (67)
You can also use subdirectories to achieve the same end, for example by setting up an a2hosting.com/my subdirectory. However, PHP (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/php/) (15)
we’re partial to subdomains in some cases because of how they impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Security (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/security/) (48)
(https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/seo-decoded-6-simple-steps-improve-rankings/). For example: SSL (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/security/ssl/) (6)
Site Speed (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category
/performance-optimization/) (54)
Search engines recognize subdomains as individual websites. That means you get more chances to increase your traffic Software (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/software/)
(https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/3-easy-ways-save-time-boost-traffic-ifttt-wordpress/). (156)
They enable you to set up backlinks (https://moz.com/learn/seo/backlinks) to your primary domain, which can increase its authority. Drupal (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/software
/drupal/) (16)
Joomla (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/software
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Subdomain: What Is A Subdomain & When To Use It? https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/when-to-use-subdomains/
With that in mind, let’s talk about some of the specific situations where it makes sense to use subdomains over subdirectories. /joomla/) (12)
Magento (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/software
/magento/) (12)
OpenCart (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/software
/opencart-software/) (7)
PrestaShop (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category
When to Use a Subdomain Instead of a Subdirectory /software/prestashop/) (5)
WooCommerce (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category
/software/woocommerce/) (8)
We’ve covered the difference between subdomains and subdirectories, so let’s get right to the point. Here are just two scenarios
WordPress (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/software
where it makes more sense to use the former over the latter: /wordpress/) (115)
Web Hosting (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/web-
1. Running an e-commerce store (https://www.a2hosting.com/ecommerce-hosting) to complement your primary website. hosting/) (60)
Dedicated (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/web-
2. Setting up a blog for an existing company or business website. hosting/dedicated/) (6)
Email (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/web-hosting
/email/) (10)
These two situations have one thing in common: they’re both running as parallel sites with specific functionality. You can achieve the
Reseller (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/web-
exact same results using subdirectories, but the SEO benefits often make subdomains a better choice. hosting/reseller/) (6)
Shared Hosting (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category
At this stage, it’s important to note there’s a lively debate on this very subject. Many people prefer to use subdomains, whereas others /web-hosting/shared-hosting/) (6)
VPS (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/category/web-hosting
say that subdirectories are the better choice, even taking SEO into consideration. If you want to learn about the latest developments, /vps/) (14)
check out the Moz blog (https://moz.com/blog), which constantly deals with the most recent developments in SEO.
WordPress (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/wordpress/)
How to Set Up and Use Subdomains (In 3 Simple Steps) WordPress Plugins (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/wordpress-plugins/)
SEO (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/seo/)
WooCommerce (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/woocommerce/)
Security (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/security/)
domains (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/domains/)
Joomla (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/joomla/)
eCommerce (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/ecommerce/)
vps (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/vps/)
SSL (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/ssl/)
cPanel (https://cpanel.com/) enables you to set up subdomains in a matter of minutes. Drupal (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/drupal/)
subdomains. If you’ve never accessed your cPanel before, keep reading – we’ll cover the process in full. Prestashop (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/prestashop/)
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Subdomain: What Is A Subdomain & When To Use It? https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/when-to-use-subdomains/
Analytics (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/analytics/)
gutenberg (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/gutenberg/)
CMS (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/cms/)
blogging (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/blogging/)
Opencart (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/opencart/)
CloudFlare (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/cloudflare/)
Magento (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/magento/)
Once you’re logged in, you’ll come to your main dashboard. Not every provider uses the same type of platform, but in our case, you Virtual Private Servers (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/virtual-private-servers/)
can find an option to access your site’s cPanel under the main dashboard:
Windows hosting (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/windows-hosting/)
wordpress 5 (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/wordpress-5/)
sitebuilder (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/sitebuilder/)
Jetpack (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/jetpack/)
Click on the Login button now, which brings you to your account’s cPanel. The number of options here can be overwhelming, so we
Facebook Ads (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/facebook-ads/)
recommend you read up (https://www.a2hosting.com/kb/cpanel) on cPanel’s functionality when you have the time.
elementor (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/elementor/)
Marketing (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/marketing/)
email (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/tag/email/)
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Subdomain: What Is A Subdomain & When To Use It? https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/when-to-use-subdomains/
/company
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(https://www.a2hosting.com
/a2hosting)
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/+A2hostingfast)
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/user/A2HostingHelp)
/blog/feed/)
Next, click on the button that says Create, and that’s it! You’ll see a success message if everything goes well, and your subdomain will
then appear on a list at the bottom of the Subdomains section:
From here, you can delete any subdomain you want by clicking on the Remove button. However, any data on a deleted subdomain
will be lost forever, so keeping a copy of it should be a consideration before you go ahead.
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Subdomain: What Is A Subdomain & When To Use It? https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/when-to-use-subdomains/
For example, you can use your new subdomain to set up a WordPress website. To do this, return to your cPanel, find the Softaculous
App Installer section, then click the WordPress option:
You’ll be brought to the Install tab. Here, you can set up WordPress on your new subdomain by choosing it from the Choose
Domain option under Software Setup:
All that’s left is to fill out a few more fields. For example, you’ll have to pick a name for your site, set an admin username, choose a
password and add a suitable email address, and also pick a language for your site. Finally, click on the Install button and give it time to
finish processing. Once it’s complete, you’ll be able to access your new site:
6 of 10 12/6/19, 10:39 AM
Subdomain: What Is A Subdomain & When To Use It? https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/when-to-use-subdomains/
It’s worth noting that you can set up as many subdomains as you want for a single domain, but (of course) you should only use them
when it makes sense to do so!
Conclusion
Subdomains are a great way to differentiate areas of your website according to their functionality. For example, you can use
a shop.domain.com address to set up an e-commerce solution (https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/set-woocommerce-store-3-simple-
steps/) that runs parallel to the rest of your site. Subdomains look clean, and they’re easy to set up, so there are few downsides to
using them.
In this post, we’ve shown you how to set up and use a subdomain through your cPanel (https://cpanel.com/). Let’s quickly recap the
steps:
Do you have any questions about how and when to use subdomains? Ask away in the comments section below!
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Subdomain: What Is A Subdomain & When To Use It? https://www.a2hosting.com/blog/when-to-use-subdomains/
Name
I ask cause I'm interested in selling product from one of my subdomains but I have a friend that wants to sell different product on another
subdomain of mine and I want to keep it simple as possible without buying another domain.
1△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
shop.mysite.com can be masked to mysite.com however it would only really be able to serve 1 sub domain otherwise if you
manually visit mysite.com there won't be a way to really know which 'sub domain' to serve (which sub domain to serve content for)
and if you did find a way to do this, it would be confusing for search engines such as Google as you'd have two different types of
content ranking.
The best approach would be to have separate domains for each site mysite.com, mysite2.com etc. Or sub domains
store1.mysite.com, store2.mysite.com.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
Thank you for this article on subdomains. You mention there are few downsides to using them, but you don't really address them. Could
you address them here, or did you already do so in another blog post?
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