What is a Subdomain? How It Works and Why You Need It
Aug, 08, 2024 
Diving into the digital world, one often stumbles upon the question, “What is a subdomain?” This article aims to shed light on this very topic, providing a comprehensive yet easy-to-understand explanation.
A subdomain, in its simplest form, is a subset or a smaller part of a larger domain. But why is it important, and how does it work? Let’s delve deeper.
Recent data shows that businesses operating on multiple subdomains are increasingly tracking website visitors across all their platforms. For instance, a business might have different subdomains for its blog (blog.business.com), support (support.business.com), and main website (www.business.com).
Each subdomain can be up to 255 characters long, offering ample space for specificity. A common example of a subdomain is “www”, which directs users to the main directory of a website.
Understanding subdomains allows you to grasp the structure of a site and pinpoint the specific domain relevant to your needs. For example, distinguishing between general traffic and customer traffic becomes easier when analyzing traffic to subdomains like login.target.com and rcam.target.com.
What is a Subdomain?
Now let’s look at the answer to the question, “What is a subdomain?” A subdomain is an additional name that is added to the main domain name. It is another site that is related to your main site but is a different branch. For example, the domain wordpress.com. A subdomain of this would be blogname.wordpress.com. Here, wordpress.com is the domain, and blogname.wordpress.com is the subdomain.
Subdomains play a crucial role in organizing different functional parts of a website. Let’s say you have a domain name yoursite.com. You can create subdomains like blog.yoursite.com or store.yoursite.com. These subdomains allow your blog and store to be designed, organized, and optimized independently from your main website.
Subdomains are not just limited to one level. You can create multiple levels of subdomains such as store.product.yoursite.com, test.forum.yoursite.com, etc. Each subdomain can be up to 255 characters long, but for multi-level subdomains, each level can only be 63 characters long.
Subdomains are especially helpful when you need to optimize site structure, enhance users’ orientation, develop a prototype or a trial version of a website, or apply two different templates with different purposes for one domain. They can also be used to build location or language targeted sites or even a site that is targeted at mobile users.
Setting up a subdomain is quite easy to do. The subdomain is added before your domain name to form a new web address. Once this URL is created, it can have its own pages like any other website, though it is a subdomain.
How does a subdomain work?
Now let us look at the operations of a subdomain. A subdomain works independently of the main domain, although it is included in the main domain. It is like a child to the parent domain. For instance, if ‘example.com’ is your main domain, then ‘blog.example.com’ will be a subdomain.
Subdomain in simple terms is a subdivision of your website that is under the same primary domain as the main website. The Domain Name System (DNS) is aware of this and takes the user to the particular segment of your website if they input the subdomain.
Subdomains are useful when it comes to structuring your website and the content that is on it. They enable you to divide one area of your site from another. For example, a business might use ‘shop.example.com’ for the selling of products and ‘blog.example.com’ for the blogging part.
Just remember that each subdomain can contain its own SEO rankings and it is possible to have one subdomain rank higher than the other. This means that ‘blog.example.com’ and ‘shop.example.com’ can be ranked differently in the search engines. Every subdomain should be properly optimized to guarantee that it will be seen on the search engines.
How subdomains are created and configured
It is relatively easy to create a subdomain. It often concerns the control panel provided to you by your hosting service. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
- Go to the web host control panel.
- Go to the DNS settings of the domain.
- Add the subdomain to the DNS record.
- Set the DNS record to the web host.
- Transfer the subdomain to your web hosting account.
After these steps are followed, you will be able to add a subdomain to your website successfully.
How subdomains can point to different IP addresses or servers
When you type “What is a subdomain?” you are venturing into the domain of the structure of websites. In its simplest definition, a subdomain is a part of your website that is located under your primary domain. It is a separate thing, it has its own area and stages.
The other important characteristic of a subdomain is that it can point to different IP addresses or servers. This is a great advantage for the owners of websites as it provides them with an ability to repost the same content on different platforms.
For instance, you may have a blog on your primary website, but you wish to create an online store. When you have a blog and a store, you can have your store in a subdomain and host it on a different server that is efficient in e-commerce while your blog remains on its original server. In this way, each segment of your website receives the necessary resources without affecting the others.
In addition, subdomains can also be used for load balancing. If your website is highly visited, then you can spread the load across different servers through subdomains. Each subdomain can be hosted on a different server, thus the load is distributed across the servers and no server is overwhelmed with traffic.
How search engines view subdomains
When you pose a question, “What is a subdomain?” it is crucial to know how search engines address it. Most of the search engines such as Google treat subdomains as different from their main domains. This is because subdomains are usually used to host content that is not usually related to the main domain.
For example, let us assume that the business has a main website and a blog section. If the blog is hosted on a subdomain, then the search engines will index it as a different website. While this separation can be beneficial for SEO, it also creates certain difficulties.
One of them is that every subdomain needs to be crawled and indexed by the search engines. This means that the SEO done for the main domain will not be automatically transferred to the subdomain. Every subdomain should have its own SEO plan.
Subdomains can be useful when there is a lot of content to sort through. For instance, a university might have subdomains for different departments in the university such as engineering.university.edu and arts.university.edu. This way, each department can then tailor the content to its audience.
However, to avoid possible security threats, all subdomains associated with a website must be checked. A subdomain that is not properly monitored can be used by hackers to perform some unwanted actions that may lead to the deterioration of the image of the website.
Why You Need a Subdomain
It is important for any webmaster to understand what is a subdomain. Subdomains are beneficial and can be used to improve your web presence in the following ways. Now let’s take a closer look at the necessity of using subdomains.
First of all, subdomains help to classify the content of the site. For instance, if your website is a combination of a blog, an online store, and a support forum, you can use subdomains such as blog.yourwebsite.com, store.yourwebsite.com, and support.yourwebsite.com. This structure also helps the visitors to locate your site and the information that they are looking for easily.
Second, subdomains can enhance the SEO of your website. When you divide parts of a site into subdomains, you get specific areas that can be fine-tuned for particular purposes. This not only helps in the navigation but also increases the interaction of the users.
Thirdly, subdomains can also help in branding. You can develop other websites that are related to the main website and this will assist in branding. For instance, a university may have a subdomain for every campus that it has.
Finally, the application of subdomains is gradually increasing. Increasingly, companies are discovering the advantages of using subdomains. This trend shows an increasing concern with how different subdomains can be beneficial for various aspects of web presence and functionality.
Real-life examples of successful subdomains
Being one of the elements of a site’s structure, subdomains have been used effectively by many companies and organizations. They are useful in the categorization and presentation of content hence improving the user experience. Now, let us turn to the examples of the successful subdomains.
Starbucks, a famous coffee brand, applies subdomains to advertise their campaigns. For instance, they developed a subdomain “stories.starbucks.com” to feature the latest summertime news and stories happening at Starbucks.This strategy enables them to guide the traffic to a particular page without clogging their website with many pages.
The customer relationship management platform known as Salesforce uses a subdomain called “login.salesforce.com” for the purpose of login. This approach ensures that the users get a secure and a different interface where they can log in to their accounts.
Zoho corporation is a software development company that employs the subdomain of “help.zoho.com” to support its users. This subdomain leads the user to a specific support site, which should help them find the assistance they need more easily.
Conclusion
The latest data reveal that more and more companies use subdomains for their SEO plan and strategy. Subdomains can be useful in the classification of the website, in the improvement of the usability of the site and in the boosting of the site’s performance on the search engine results pages.
Do not forget that subdomains, in general, can be useful but should be used with moderation. Excessive use of subcategories can result in a confusing hierarchy of the site, which will be hardly understandable for both users and search engines.
To sum up, the understanding of “what is a subdomain” and its application can be a real breakthrough for your website. It is a tool that if applied properly can help improve your online presence and be of value to your site’s SEO plan.