What Is a Subdomain and How Can Your Website Use One? (2024)

A subdomain is one of those parts of a website you see every day, but you may not know much about what goes on behind the scenes. It turns out that the words you sometimes see before a website’s domain name help website owners like you compartmentalize their sites.

Website subdomains work together with domains to define your website’s identity. “Subdomain” may sound like a technical term, but understanding what a subdomain is and how to use one can make a big difference for your website, especially if you run a business. Let’s review what subdomains are, how they work, and how you can use them for your website.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is the name you enter into your browser to visit a website. It’s a combination of a word plus “.com,” “.net,” “.org,” or another top-level domain. Some examples include wordpress.com and slack.com.

Think of a domain as an address-forwarding tool. Your website’s real “name” is actually a string of numbers known as an IP address. We use domain names as placeholders for these numbers because they’re easier to remember.

What is a subdomain?

A subdomain is the word that sometimes appears before a domain name in a URL. Think of it as a domain within a domain that keeps a website’s parts organized. For example, if your website is mycoolwebsite.com, you could add a subdomain called myblog.mycoolwebsite.com.

Website owners use subdomains to organize important sections by content and technology. In this sense, subdomains can act like their own websites but still count as part of the main domain.

Benefits of using subdomains

While not every website needs a subdomain, they can really make a difference when the situation calls for it. Here are some of the main reasons for using a subdomain:

Better content organization

If your site serves multiple purposes, subdomains let you divide your site into different microsites dedicated to each goal. You can give each of these microsites its own layout and navigation to give your visitors focused experiences.

SEO versatility

Your domain’s pages’ search engine performance is connected, which can sometimes get in the way of tracking distinct campaigns and objectives. When you separate part of your website into a subdomain, search engines view it as an entirely new website.

Subdomains bring two main benefits to your search engine optimization (SEO). You’ll get a place to test new keywords and approaches that might negatively affect your website’s authority. Plus, you’ll get to evaluate your subdomain’s performance without the rest of the website affecting it.

But, since you’re effectively starting from scratch, you won’t get the rank boosts from your existing performance, authority, and backlinks. When considering creating a subdomain for your site, consider how much you’d benefit from a fresh start versus the potential setbacks.

Audience segmentation

Many websites speak to different audiences, whether they have unique interests, locations, or goals. Sometimes, these differences warrant creating a unique website, such as when you need to present your content in a separate language. But, instead, you can create a subdomain to keep everything on the same site.

Organization by website function

Some sites have more than one technical use. For example, maybe you have pages describing your products as well as a dedicated WooCommerce store for those products. Since your store has separate software and a different layout from your main site, you could give it a subdomain.

In another example, analytics.google.com users can go to this Google subdomain to monitor their website metrics. Adding a subdomain could also indicate a new function under your business, like when Amazon created music.amazon.com to host its music-streaming service.

Technical flexibility

Since subdomains allow for a distinct technical setup from your main site, you can test and install new software and tools. One popular use for subdomains is creating a staging site to try new features and set up new software without affecting the rest of your website.

Plus, on a subdomain, you can install software that is completely independent of the software used on your main site. So, if you need different plugins, themes, or a specific feature set, you have the freedom to set them up on a subdomain without impacting your main website.

Common use cases for subdomains

Looking for more specific examples of how to use a subdomain? Let’s look at some popular use cases and examples:

Blogs or news sections

With content marketing becoming such a huge focus for many businesses, many websites now have blogs or other publications that act separately from their main sites. Some of these websites use a subdomain for these sections to give them their own identity and track their performance individually.

For example, the pajama company Jambys has a publication called Downtime featuring its own subdomain, downtime.jambys.com.

E-commerce stores

Business owners who want distinct places to describe and sell their products on their site can give their e-commerce stores their own subdomains. Adding a subdomain could be necessary in cases where their e-commerce software requires it.

Scrub Daddy has an established brand that benefits from dedicating the main website to describing its cleaning product lines. It then sells its products at the Smile Shop — smileshop.scrubdaddy.com.

Other business services and software

There’s a wide range of online services out there for simplifying aspects of business like ordering food or making reservations. Sometimes these services have their own domains that add your portal as a subdomain, while you can add others to your website through a subdomain.

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream uses Olo for delivery, and Olo takes the lead with the domain at jenis.olo.com.

Help centers

Help and support sections for websites often involve dedicated navigation menus and software, so it makes sense to give them their own subdomains. A separate microsite gives curious customers plenty of room to solve their problems.

Later’s colorful help center, help.later.com, is just one example out of many compartmentalized help websites out there.

User or customer portals

Websites of all backgrounds can benefit from membership portals, whether they’re for accessing personal information, filling out an application, or taking part in an exclusive group. These portals can have subdomains to keep privileged information distinct from more public content.

One of the most famous examples of this approach to subdomains is Google’s account management menu at myaccount.google.com.

Multilingual or regional versions of a site

When you need to serve content to people who speak different languages or have specific regional needs, subdomains direct visitors to the right site versions. Some websites are automatically set up to direct visitors to the right subdomain based on their internet’s location.

The makeup brand Glossier combines subdomains with subfolders (which you’ll learn more about in a sec) to direct international customers to the website they need. Interestingly, the United Kingdom has its own subdomain at uk.glossier.com, but France is a subfolder of the UK subdomain at uk.glossier.com/fr-fr.

Status pages

Some services and software have status pages for you to check to see if any problems you have are on your side or theirs. If one of these businesses pays for a platform to share these updates, it may need to put it on its own subdomain for the software to work.

For instance, Notion uses Atlassian Statuspage for its status page, so it has the subdomain status.notion.so.

Staging or development environments

When you want to try a new plugin or layout, it sometimes makes the most sense to experiment with it on a gated subdomain. But, depending on the tool you want to test and your hosting provider, you might not have to use one at all. WordPress.com’s staging sites give you a space to work with new elements without having to commit, and you don’t need to make a new subdomain to use them.

Subdomains vs subfolders: It’s all about SEO

You may notice that some websites use a structure like sitename.com/topic as opposed to topic.sitename.com. The former is known as a subfolder structure and works differently from a subdomain.

Subfolders let you build on the momentum you have with your existing website. While subdomains are independent entities, subfolders are parts of the main website. This means that they inherit the authority of the main domain, which is a good thing if you’re working with related content.

On the other hand, if your goal is to build something focused on another business area or service, a subdomain will provide more flexibility. Being a brand new site, your SEO efforts will start from square one, but this lets you strategize specifically without impacting your main site.

How to create a subdomain for your WordPress.com site

It’s simple to add a subdomain to your WordPress.com site, whether you bought a domain through us or have your own. Here’s how to create a subdomain, configure it in your DNS, and connect it to your WordPress.com site:

Creating a subdomain when you have a WordPress.com domain

You can add a subdomain to your WordPress.com domain by adding a domain connection subscription to a second WordPress.com website registered under the same account. You will need to pay for another WordPress.com site plan, but not a second domain plan since you already own your domain.

So, start by creating a second site with a paid plan. Don’t worry about picking a domain for it now — we’ll get that set up in just a moment. Click Choose my domain later when you get prompted to choose a domain at the beginning.

Instead, at this point you should consider your goals for your subdomain and choose a plan with the features needed for meeting them. For instance, if you want to add a membership portal plugin to your subdomain, you’ll need a plan that supports plugins.

Then, connect that site to a subdomain by adding a domain connection subscription. Visit Upgrades → Domains, then click Add a domain and select Use a Domain I own. Type your whole subdomain name, like subdomain.mysite.com, then click Next. Click Select in the Connect your domain section.

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From here, WordPress might ask you to submit an authorization code. Open a new tab and grab it from the Domains menu you were just at under View Settings → Transfer → Get authorization code. Check your domain’s contact email for the code. Go back to your original window and click I found the domain’s settings page, then enter your code.

Now you’re all set!

Creating a subdomain when you have a domain from somewhere else

If you have a domain from another provider, like Godaddy, Bluehost, or Hostgator, you’ll have to create the subdomain in your hosting control panel. Two popular options are cPanel and Plesk. Your hosting provider might already offer you access to one, or you may need to ask your administrator if you have a complex hosting situation.

Go into your web hosting panel and create the subdomain from there. The process varies by platform, but you usually go to your domain settings, find an option called Add Subdomain, and then choose a name and root folder.

From there, follow the process from the above section to add a domain connection subscription. If you get a prompt to verify your domain ownership, you can get it from your hosting provider. Your provider might call it a transfer, auth, or EPP code.

After you associate your subdomain with a WordPress subscription, it’s time to configure your DNS records to associate your subdomain’s address with your domain’s address. At WordPress, we recommend making a CNAME record at your domain registrar. Use these specs:

• DNS record type: CNAME
• Subdomain / Name / Host: Your full subdomain name, such as blog.mycoolsite.com
• CNAME Value / Alias of / Points to: Your WordPress.com domain’s free site address, such as mysite.wordpress.com

Tip: You can find your free site address at Upgrades → Domains in your dashboard sidebar.

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If you need to enter the CNAME as-is, it’ll look like this, but with your specific subdomain and free site name:

blog.mycoolsite.com. IN CNAME mysite.wordpress.com

Feel free to contact your domain registrar for help if you aren’t sure what to do for this step. Since WordPress sites make up 43.1% of the internet, hosting providers already get a lot of questions about them.

Once you have your CNAME record ready to go, your subdomain will be ready after the DNS propagates within a few hours.

Add a subdomain to your WordPress website

Subdomains are powerful tools that can add to your user experience and expand your business offerings by creating dedicated site areas for particular products and audiences. If you could use the technical and organizational distinction that comes with a new website but want to keep that content on your existing website, a subdomain checks both boxes.

Of course, you can’t have a subdomain until you pick a domain name for your website. Find and register yours with WordPress.com today!