what are sub-domains , according to my little knowledge its like this that if i have a domian like for example www.forums.com is original domain and sub domain is www.subforum.forums.com am i right ? i m asking you for this, coz i m going to buy a domain and i want to make some sites and my plan is this that buy one domain and than make sub domains , how much extra i have to pay for sub domains , just any guess plz. thanks
Well, yes you are right but typically you do not tag 'www' before a subdomain. So a subdomain would be subforums.forums.com . For instance, something closer to home is DP. The main domain would be http://www.digitalpoint.com and the subdomain would be like http://forums.digitalpoint.com where you are now. Most web host would allow you to create as many sub domains as you want without any additional cost to you because it does not cost them anything to provide it anyways. On a typical web hosting account, the sub-domain created through your control panel would be a sub-directory in your account. The total bandwidth and storage usage of your main site and sub domains would be counted to what you are allocated. Some web host will provide two additional options, typicall Parked Domains and Add-on Domains. Parked Domains are just typically if you have more than one domain name but both pointing to the same site. Add-on Domains are more exciting as it allows you to host more than one site in your account. It is somewhat like subdomains in feature but they have their own domain name.
That's right, however if your hosting provide you with cpanel, every domain will be available either as subforums.forums.com or www.subforums.forums.com
If your making different sections that are linked on your homepage, like forums.yoursite.com profiles.yoursite.com then I see no problem. But if you are making several different sites, like one is myspace resource, other is arcade, other is a library forum, I would recommend buying different domains for each site. It is more professional and many are drawn away by subdomains.
The other beauty of subdomains is that they do not necessary need to be hosted on the same server. The Subdomain can have its own 'A' Record in your DNS Server so all you need to do is to supply the subdomain with the IP of what it is using and it will work. Great if you run out of space in your current hosting and want to host another part of your site elsewhere.
Thanks Eddy, one more thing, that if someone write www before original sub domain for example http://www.forums.digitalpoint.com , than it act like same without www or not ? and for Add-on domains , we have to pay for getting Add-on Domains ? can u give any example, thanks
Well, as to whether the 'www' works in the sub domain, it really depends on how cpanel set it up. If I am not wrong, if you set up the sub domain as a subdomain then the 'www' virtual site alias is not set up. You need to get your web host to manually include it in the httpd configure file for it to work. Of course, your dns needs to have a CNAME record for that. But having the www in the subdomain name just makes it way too long to type and I prefer it without it. As for Add-on Domains, it depends on whether you need to pay for it or not. From the web host perspective, it cost them nothing to provide it. It is just a few settings and it is done. However, they may want to upsell you on this to earn a couple of bucks. There is nothing wrong with that. However, check with the plan you sign up with, in this competitive edge, web hosts are throwing in free add-ons (probably 2 or so) to the plan to out do their competitors. Add-on domains allows you to host more than 1 site on your account. For instance, you have http://www.abc.com and http://www.def.com and both are unrelated. You can set up http://www.abc.com as your main site and then http://www.def.com as your add-on. The Add-on site will reside as a subdirectory in your account but to your visitors, they are considered as separate site with their own content. No one will know they are sharing the same control panel.