What Is a Subdomain? Detailed Guide for 2022

Registering new domain names is not always essential if the one you presently have is operating flawlessly. You may always make a subdomain out of your current domain name rather than generating a new one.

Do you know what is a subdomain? Let’s check out this detailed guide.

What Is a Subdomain

A subdomain is a prefix that is applied to a domain name to identify a particular area of your website. Subdomains are typically used by site owners to administer large areas that need their content hierarchy, such as online shops, blogs, or support systems.

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Although picking a domain name is among the first decisions you'll need to make when building a website, you may establish a subdomain whenever you want. When registering a domain name, you can access an endless number of subdomains, ranging from "abc" to "xyz."

Structure of a Subdomain

The top-level domain (TLD) is the extension, such as.com or.net, while the second-level domain (SLD) is the distinctive element of the domain name, frequently a company or brand name. In the example of dsers.com, "com" is the TLD, and "dsers" is the SLD.

What comes before the SLD is called the subdomain. World Wide Web, or www, is the most popular subdomain. The website's front page and its most crucial pages are located under this subdomain. Most domain registrars offer the www subdomain with domain name purchases since it is frequently used.

Subdomains are frequently used to divide a subdomain of a website from the main website. For instance, help.dsers.com leads to the DSers support website.

Common Parameters of a Subdomain

The following are some crucial elements regarding a subdomain:

• A domain may have as many as 500 subdomains.
• Multiple subdomains can be made, such as abc.xyz.yoursite.com and others.
• Each level can be 63 characters long for multi-level subdomains, but each subdomain can have 255 characters.

Why Use a Subdomain

To install a new website theme with its appearance, menus, and functionality, you must construct a different website with a subdomain. A domain and a subdomain are recorded separately since they function as two differentother websites. This enables a company to provide various user experiences and track user data and analytics more precisely, which can then enhance and optimize both the primary URL and the subdomain site.

Pros and Cons of a Subdomain for SEO

The subdomain will have pros and cons for your SEO that you should consider before deciding to use it.

• Improve the on-site experience: Remember, your responsibility is to duplicate the in-store experience online. Would you go back to a store if you spent two hours searching around and still couldn't find what you were looking for? A subdomain will help you with it.
• Boost your domain authority: A rating known as domain authority effectively expresses how well you're trusted to deliver what users seek. Linking the two domains together is an excellent approach to using subdomains to boost domain authority.
• Organize your content: It is easier to locate and more accessible for Google to crawl your website after all content has been collected.
• Allow you to include relevant keywords in your URL: Your SEO may benefit from using keywords as an available subdomain to help arrange material. Once more, this facilitates crawling and immediately informs Google of the subject matter of that particular region of your website.

Here are several ways that using subdomains might harm your website:

• Dilute your SEO: Having an unneeded subdomain causes your SEO efforts to be split across two sites rather than concentrated on just one. This implies that if you only focused on one domain, it could require twice as many links and pieces of content to get the same outcomes.
• Won’t help with internal linking: A subdomain's links are considered external. Internal linking is one of the most important ranking elements, as any SEO expert will tell you.
• More problematic for Google to crawl: Subdomains must be verified and tracked individually in Search Console and Analytics because they are independent sites. Combining all these elements may make it more difficult for Google to crawl the website at first, with hopefully better results on the backside.

When to Use a Subdomain Name

You might be wondering when wouldy you need subdomains. Here are several situations in which a subdomain might be helpful.

Create a Support/Help Page

It is ideal to utilize a subdomain as a "subpage" on your website when it needs a help or documentation section. This "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page" is on your website. Visitors will have no trouble finding what they're looking for. Associating your "support" page with your primary website while creating a page with a ton of information will also be more straightforward.

Set up an eCommerce Page on Your Website

Integrating anthe eCommerce shop into your current website could be challenging since it might change how your primary website is set up. Instead of reorganizing or revamping your existing website, you may set up an online store using a subdomain. This will enable you to launch a brand-new website where you may market your products and services and serve your clientele without interfering with the top website.

Make a Test Page for Your Website

You could want to revamp your website, add a new feature, or develop a new layout, but you don't want to mess with your current website. You'll discover that using a subdomain while creating a test page is a smart move. Without forcing your live website to go down, you may fiddle with your test page and view its live version. You may move your newly created website to your primary website whenever you're ready to publish your test page.

How to Create a Subdomain

You must have the main domain before you can set up any subdomains. Make sure to purchase a domain.

When you acquire a domain, you also own the rights to any associated subdomains. The general actions you must take to create a subdomain are as follows:

• Create a record in your DNS settings using the name of the subdomain.
• Send visitors to the server where your subdomain is hosted.

You will see that www.yoursite.com refers to yoursite.com when you create a record in your DNS settings. This effectively turns www into a subdomain as well! Most hosts provide you with simple tools to make this happen.

Subdomain Examples

Now that the definition of a subdomain has been provided, let's examine several examples in which one could be appropriate:

eCommerce

Businesses frequently use a distinct site design to manage transactions due to the complexity of online commerce. Due to this disparity, companies might provide different functions than what the top website requires or offers. Users may buy games for their consoles on a platform like the store.steampowered.com subdomain.

Support & Help

Site owners can develop a specialized help platform under a subdomain when Frequently Asked Questions pages fall short of fully addressing all queries from users. This company can make the platform simple and more search engine friendly.

The platform's subdomain, help.dsers.com, features a distinctive, meticulously crafted, and intricate structure that addresses users needing assistance.

Blog

You could think about placing your blog on a subdomain because blogs sometimes target subjects and keywords unrelated to the rest of the website. The vast website of the Library of Congress serves a different demographic than its blogs. Due to this, users may browse and search through hundreds of posts on blogs.loc.gov to get the information they're looking for.

Mobile

Most of the time, online platforms that need a redesign to function efficiently on mobile devices host their mobile websites under separate subdomains. For instance, Facebook designed a unique user experience for mobile users under the subdomain m.facebook.com. The business adjusted the layout to match the oblong shape of a mobile device.

Content

Sites that produce significant, strongly branded material for specific topics frequently go with specialized subdomains. Subdomains can be used by newspapers, teams, movies, and other media with diverse content to set themselves apart from parent companies.

The material in The New York Times operates very differently from the stuff in NYT Cooking, as one would anticipate (cooking.nytimes.com). By separating the material, each brand can tell search engines how authoritative it is.

Language / Location

Organizations can maintain their web addresses' clarity and cohesion by separating them into subdomains for each language. For instance, each language has its subdomain on Wikipedia. It's interesting to note that the es.wikipedia.org site differs from the en.wikipedia.org homepage in language and substance.

Companies may also simply provide localized or geographically specialized information by employing subdomains. For instance, Yahoo curates news about the UK using uk.yahoo.com and the US using us.yahoo.com.

Forum

Due to the complexity of creating an online community, forum designers frequently employ specialized subdomains. Just consider the base domain, forum.unity.com. But users may post queries and engage in a community discussion on forum.unity.com.

Subdomains vs. Subdirectories - Which Is Better for SEO

Subdomains and subdirectories are seen differently by search engines. Let's look at why this is the case and how SEO is impacted by utilizing a subdomain instead of a subdirectory.

Subdomains are considered as different websites by Google and many other search engines. This implies that each subdomain has to be crawled and indexed independently by search engines.

Subdomains should only be used when necessary. Subdomains can be used, for instance, to rank for various keywords, target a particular market, reach a different area, or provide content in a language other than the one used on your primary website.

Subdirectories are files that are stored and found under your primary domain. Subdirectories share "link juice" and SEO with your main website because Google and other search engines do not treat them as independent websites.

Utilizing subdirectories will help you rank your website more quickly than using a subdomain for bloggers, new enterprises, or small businesses with limited time and resources.

Final Words

What do you intend to do now that you know what a subdomain isis a subdomain? Do you believe that using subdomains is the best option for your website? They undoubtedly have their time and place, but utilizing them sparingly and only when necessary is recommended.

This is somewhat towards the bottom of total SEO ranking considerations. Organize the information you already have on your website, fill your content schedule, and strive to enhance your on-site SEO instead.

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