Support Centre
Create a subdomain
As it’s name suggests a subdomain is a child url of your websites main domain name. This can be used to store separate websites without the need of purchasing a separate domain name or to break your website into different sections.
Your main website can be accessed via www.yourdomain.com.au (or yourdomain.com.au) however a subdomain will replace the www with anything that you wish.
A prime example of the use of a subdomain is a mobile version of a website. Usually this will be placed under something like m.yourdomain.com.au or mob.yourdomain.com.au
Digital Developments provides an unlimited amount of subdomains with all of our web hosting accounts.
This short tutorial will show you how to create your own subdomains using cPanel
1. First thing to do is open your web browser. This will be something like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome etc. In the address bar type our yourdomain.com.au/cpanel replacing yourdomain.com.au with your own domain name.
Figure 1
2. This will bring up the cPanel login page (see Figure 1). Enter your username and password and click the login button. If you don’t have these login details please contact us and we will supply them to you.
3. Once you have logged in you will be brought to the main cPanel page. If a popup appears asking “Do you need help getting started?” simply click the ‘No, I’m fine. Thanks!’ button to continue.
Figure 2
4. You will need to find the icon labelled ‘Subdomains’ which is located in a box called ‘Domains’. Click on this icon to proceed (see Figure 2).
5. You will now be at the ‘Subdomains’ section ready to create a new subdomain. You will notice there is a ‘Create a Subdomain’ box with a few fields to fill out. The fields are ‘Subdomain’, ‘Document Root’ and also a drop down box (see Figure 3).
Figure 3
6. In the ‘Subdomain’ text box enter the word you wish to use. This needs to be lowercase letters, numbers or hyphens and it is best to keep as short as possible.
7. In the drop down box to the right their may be more than one selectable domain name to use. Simply select the domain you wish to attached the subdomain to. If there is only one then you can only create a subdomain for that domain.
8. The ‘Document Root’ text box should automatically be filled out based on what you entered in the ‘Subdomain’ box, so you shouldn’t need to change this. This just dictates which folder on your hosting account that will be used to store the website you want to put under this subdomain. Advanced users can modify this if they wish.
9. Finish by clicking the ‘Create’ button to add the subdomain.
Figure 4
10. The subdomain should appear in the list below. You can remove the subdomain by simply clicking on the ‘Remove’ link in the Actions column next to that subdomain (see Figure 4).
11. You can now proceed with adding website files to the folder that has been created for that subdomain. By default this will be public_html/subdomain where subdomain is the word you chose in step 6.
About the Author - Craig Bilski
Craig is a web developer at Digital Developments, programming custom designed websites using Wordpress. After hours he turns into a sports nut, rock music lover and enjoys amateur photography.
