What are Sub Domains?

[EarlC]

Maybe VM needs a forum focused on web sites, blogs & social sites.

http://www.machighway.com offers a “small” doman package that provides, among other things, 20 sub domains.

My question: what exactly ARE sub domains and how are they useful/beneficial?

[brandon0409]

Sub domains would be something like this.

My main website is http://www.eventvideosbybrandon.com. I have my account hosted through Godaddy.

But lets say I also have a couple smaller business and want websites for them that don’t appear to be affiliated with my other company. For example:

http://www.waxonwaxoff.com

http://www.sandthefloor.com

http://www.paintthehouse.com

http://www.paintthefence.com

Each one would have it’s own domain name but be hosted from the same hosting account.

But http://www.eventvideosbybrandon.com remains the parent account.

Now that looks much better than:

http://www.eventvideosbybrandon.com/waxonwaxoff.html

http://www.eventvideosbybrandon.com/paintthefence.html

etc.

Is that clear as mud?

Okay I hope this helps.

[EarlC]

Thanks Brandon, that does help me understand. What I do not understand now is how to implement this for my web site(s) – is it automatic, or what do I have to do to make it work.

I suppose it would depend on the program/software used whether or not the process is automatic, but if it is not, then I have NO idea how to implement/utilize these subdomains.

Thanks again.

[brandon0409]

I had to help my mother implement this with her website. She has two separate businesses but she uses this same principle of a subdomain.

My best advice is to call the tech support for your web hosting and have them walk you through the process. That is what I did.

To be honest, it is very confusing the first time. Click here, create a folder there, hit submit… Then wait 24 hours until it takes effect.

That is what I did.

[jerronsmith]

Brandon,

Technically that isn’t correct.

The concept of sub domains are based on the fact that domain names are hierarchial. Let us use Videomaker.com as an example. In this example .com is the top level domain, Videomaker would be a subdomain of the top level domain .com. Now this isn’t actually how most people think of it, for most people the idea of a sub domain dosn’t kick in until you get past the main address. Lets says videomaker wanted to add a subdomain for the community area of the site, it would look something like this community.videomaker.com.

[Coreece]

that’s how I understood it Jerron.

It’s like if you want some quick free webspace….let’s say I go to bustarhymes.com…lol….if Busta wants to give me some free space, he would create a sub domain for me like coreece.bustarhymes.com soI don’t have to register and pay for a new domain….unfortunately, I’d be associated with Busta Rhymes!

[jerronsmith]

Coreece,

Yeah, thats right. It is an alternative to buying a new domain name.

[composite1]

Jerron,

You’re dead on. My company’s going through this very process and at first it was a ‘kooky’ concept. If any of you want to see how subdomains work check out the major TV networks websites. Everything attached to ABC goes through (no pun intended) go.com and MSNBC with MSN and so on. Most major webservices will allow you to set up subdomains without a lot of headache or extra expense. The toughest part is keeping them straight on your end. The following is a link from yahoo small business that has good info about how this stuff works with them. The majority of the info works for other providers except for yahoo specific items.

Hope this helps.

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/domains/subdomains/

[birdcat]

I have used sub-domains in various ways – I have my main domain (www.birdcat.com) but have done work for others and hosted it for them in a sub-domain, then all they needed to do was get a domain name (only about $10/year) and redirect to my sub-domain (for example, my http://www.7squared.com just redirects to video.birdcat.com). This way, I find it easier (and more cost effective) to manage just one (or few) true web hosts but can have many different sites.

[composite1]

Birdcat,

That’s a pretty smooth setup. Cute ‘birdmouse’ BTW.

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