Subdomains without harming your website

Let’s say you have a website and want to separate a massive piece of content by putting it into a subdomain. Or maybe you’ve got a website with subdomains that you need to promote. In both cases, you’ve got to know what to do with your site SEO-wise because subdomain optimization is tricky.

In the next paragraphs, we’ll explain what subdomains are, why you might need them and how to promote them in a search.

What is a subdomain?

A subdomain is a subset of your website, serving to organize or divide your website content into distinct sections.

But how is it related to the domain?

A long, long time ago, back in the days of the ARPANET, domain names, as we know them today, did not exist. Instead, all directories in the network were marked with code numbers – IP addresses. That’s what you would’ve had to use in the 1970s to get to Instagram – 52.45.71.129, or Facebook – 69.171.234.21.

But in 1983, Paul Mockapetris invented the DNS concept – Domain Name System – that we are all still using to this day.

The main idea of DNS lies in its tree-like hierarchical structure: from the main domain to the subdomains.

The main domain is called the Top-Level Domain (TLD). Your unique website’s name would be the Second-Level Domain (SLD). A subdomain, in turn, is a third-level domain.