How To Create A Sub Domain Name

Shorten A Website Address (Url) In Order To Type It In Quicker

A Subdomain is a shortened path name that points (redirects) to a folder or sub-folder within your public_html (website) folder. If I have a folder called music for example with a sub-folder inside it called classical with a sub-folder inside that called beethoven, I could create the subdomain beethoven.websitecreationhelp.com for it.

This means instead of typing the url www.websitecreationhelp.com/music/classical/beethoven into a web browser's Address Bar edit box to get to the beethoven folder, I would only need to type the url www.beethoven.websitecreationhelp.com. This is possible because when a subdomain is created (such as www.beethoven.websitecreationhelp.com) you have to set up its redirection path too (such as www.websitecreationhelp.com/music/classical/beethoven).

This makes redirection flexible because you can switch between folders. For example. You can always keep the subdomain the same (i.e. www.music.websitecreationhelp.com) but change the redirection whenever you need to - One week www.websitecreationhelp.com/music/classical/beethoven and another week www.websitecreationhelp.com/music/rock/therollingstones). That way your visitors only have to remember the music subdomain, irrelevant to what it is being redirected to each week.

To create a sub domain first login to your website's Control Panel and then click on the SUBDOMAINS link to open the Sub Domain control panel (Fig 1.1).

Fig 1.0  Click on the SUBDOMAINS link to continue




Fig 1.1  Click on the CREATE button to create the Subdomain

When the Subdomain control panel opens you will have two empty boxes, SUBDOMAIN and DOCUMENT ROOT, that make up the Subdomain. The SUBDOMAIN edit box needs filling in with the name of your subdomain folder. In this example music. When you do this and then click inside the DOCUMENT ROOT edit box it is automatically filled in for you with the document root details. In this example with the path name of the subdomain folder, which is made up of public_html and /music.

At this point only the subdomain will exist when you click on the CREATE button, but the redirection will need setting up after that. If the subdomain folder does not exist (i.e. music) it will be created for you, but if it does exist that original (music) folder will be used and not overwritten. So in this example when I click on the CREATE button the music folder will be created (because it does not exist yet) and the subdomain www.music.websitecreationhelp.com will also be created.

Fig 1.2  Click on the GO BACK link to continue

After clicking on the CREATE button (Fig 1.1 above) you are given confirmation that the subdomain was set up successfully (Fig 1.2 above). Click on its GO BACK link to go back to the subdomain creation page and then click on the MANAGE REDIRECTION link in the Modify A Subdomain section (at the bottom of that page).

Fig 1.3  Click on the MANAGE REDIRECTION link to continue




Fig 1.4  Click on the SAVE button to continue

Clicking on the MANAGE REDIRECTION link will bring you to the Subdomain Redirection page (above) where you then set up redirection for your newly created subdomain. There is only one edit box to fill in and it requires the URL (path name/location) to the actual folder you want the subdomain pointing (redirecting) to. In this example I typed http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/music/classical/beethoven/ before clicking on the SAVE button to continue.

If you want to redirect to an index web page within the folder (i.e. index.html) you must put a forward slash / at the end of the URL. In this example I am redirecting the subdomain to a folder called beethoven (http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/music/classical/beethoven/) and have included the / so that the index.htm web page within that folder will be displayed in a web browser. If the index.htm web page does not exist the content of that folder will be visible to visitors.

Fig 1.5  Redirection has been set up for the, music.websitecreationhelp.com, subdomain.

After clicking on the SAVE button (Fig 1.4 above) you will receive the standard confirmation notice (Fig 1.5 above) to state you have successfully set up the redirection for your subdomain. Click on its GO BACK link to take you back to the subdomain creation page where you can then set up another subdomain and modify or remove an existing subdomain.

Fig 1.6  The existing subdomains created for this main (websitecreationhelp.com) domain

Subdomains are ideal for shortening very long URLs (path names) but not really ideal for shortening URLs that are already short, such as www.music.com/popstars. In this case it would be just as easy (non-lazy) to type www.music.com/popstars as it would be to type www.popstars.music.com - Almost the same number of characters.