Question:

What is a subdomain?

Answer:

Within webhosting, a subdomain allows you to create an entirely separate website within your main domain's namespace.  For instance, if your main site is mydomain.com (also accessible by www.mydomain.com), you can create/add a subdomain called shop.mydomain.com... or forum.mydomain.com.   This will be a completely separate website from your main site.  It does, however, share the same limits (disk space, transfer, mem usage, etc) as the main or parent domain.

When you create a subdomain, you have the option for the subdomain to use the same FTP user or a unique one:

• If you chose to use the SAME ftp user as the main/parent domain:
  • Make an ftp connection to the server just like you would to your main site.  You'll see the following directory structure (we've populated this example with sample subdomains "forum" and "shop"... change directory to the subdomains subfolder for the subdomain you created:
    • httpdocs <= website root for mydomain.com (a.k.a. www.mydomain.com)
    • htpsdocs
    • statistics
    • webusers
    • subdomains
      • forum
        • httpdocs <= website root for forum.mydomain.com
      • shop
        • httpdocs <= website root for shop.mydomain.com
• If you chose to use a UNIQUE ftp user:
  • Make an ftp connection to the server using the unique ftp user/password you created for the domain.
  • Once connected, your will be in the ftp root for the SUBDOMAIN (the ftp server distinguishes what directory to place you in based on the user).  So at this point, you'll only need to change directories to the /httpdocs, and publish your files there.   Using the example above, if you set the forum subdomain up to use a unique ftp user, then when you make an FTP connection with that user, you'd be put into the directory "forum".

Most of our plans include subdomains, and may include unlimited number of subdomains.  To determine how many are included with your hosting plan, please log into your control panel and check the LIMITS icon to determine if and how many subdomains your plan includes.

Follow up question:

Is this the same as a Subweb in FrontPage?

Answer:

No.  Actually this is completely different.  A subweb in FrontPage is a "frontpage only" concept... With FrontPage, you can treat a subfolder on your site (like mydomain.com/shop) as a a regular subfolder, or as a "subweb".  If you set as a subweb, then that subweb has it's own FrontPage configuration options, separate from the primary domain.

A subdomain is not a FrontPage subweb... just looking at the URLS can illustrate that:

• shop.mydomain.com - a subdomain, a completely separate website on the webserver.
• mydomain.com/shop - a FrontPage subweb, still part of the main site, but a space where FrontPage allows for different FrontPage configuration options than the main domain. 

Follow up question:

So, can I use FrontPage to create a website for a subdomain, and publish to it.

Answer:

Yes.  Within FrontPage, a subdomain will be a completely different website than your main domain.  So create a NEW WEB in FrontPage, and create the files for your subdomain there.  Then, when you're ready to publish, publish to http://mysub.mydomain.com (where you'd replace "mysub" with whatever your subdomain name actually is).  When prompted for the FrontPage user and password, you provide FTP user and password you specified when you created the subdomain (this is discussed above in the first question, where you had the option of the subdomain using the SAME ftp user as the main domain, or creating a UNIQUE ftp user (the ftp user is the frontpage user).