How to create and manage subdomains

A subdomain lets you run a separate section of your site under its own address — shop.yourdomain.com, blog.yourdomain.com, staging.yourdomain.com — without buying a second domain. It is created and managed from inside your control panel, and each one points at a folder on your hosting account, just like your main domain does.

What a subdomain actually is

Technically, a subdomain is a DNS record — usually a CNAME or an A record — that tells the internet a name like shop.yourdomain.com should be treated as its own address, resolving to the same server as the rest of your domain. Your control panel handles that DNS record automatically when you create a subdomain through its subdomain tool, so you do not need to set it up separately in the DNS section unless you are doing something unusual.

Creating a subdomain

1. Choose a name

   Keep it short and descriptive of what it is for — blog, shop, app, staging are all typical. Avoid spaces or special characters; stick to letters, numbers and hyphens.

2. Open the subdomains section of your control panel

   This is usually grouped alongside domain and DNS management.

3. Choose the folder it should point at

   You can point it at a brand new, empty folder created specifically for it, or at an existing folder if you are exposing content that is already there under a new address.

4. Save and wait briefly for it to become active

   Because a subdomain involves a DNS record, it can take a short time — usually minutes rather than hours — before it reliably resolves everywhere.

Uploading content to it

Once created, a subdomain behaves exactly like a normal domain as far as your file manager or FTP client is concerned: whatever files sit in the folder it points to are what a visitor sees at that address. If you are installing a separate application there — a staging copy of your main site, or an entirely different piece of software — treat it as its own independent install, with its own database if it needs one.

Common uses

• A staging or testing copy of your site, kept separate from the live version so changes can be checked before going public. See creating a staging copy of your site.
• A distinct section of a larger site, such as a shop or a documentation area, run as its own application separate from the main site's code.
• A subdomain used by a third-party service, where you are asked to point a CNAME record at something the provider controls — a help desk, a landing page tool, an email marketing platform.

SSL on a subdomain

A subdomain generally needs its own SSL certificate coverage — it is not automatically included just because the main domain has one, unless the certificate is a wildcard type specifically issued to cover any subdomain. Check managing SSL certificates in your control panel once a new subdomain is live, and confirm it shows as secured before treating it as production-ready.

Removing a subdomain you no longer need

Deleting a subdomain through the same section removes the DNS record pointing at it, so the address stops resolving. This does not automatically delete the files in the folder it was pointing at — decide separately whether you want to keep, archive or delete that content, since removing the subdomain and removing the files are two different actions.

If you are not sure whether you need a subdomain at all rather than a plain subfolder, what is a subdomain covers the distinction and when each one makes more sense.