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What does a $9.97 sub-domain give you?

  1. ontheliner
    Member

    Hi WP-ers ... I'm no geek and do find a lot of the WP jargon daunting, so would welcome some advice in plain English please. Am considering buying a domain name for my blog - http://1980sontheline.wordpress.com - and am unclear what another $9.97 for a sub-domain will actually add. Is a sub-domain a whole new website in its own right, or will its sidebar still display all the archived posts and widgets and pages created on the top domain site?

    In other words, isn't it simpler to start a second blog free of charge, rather than add a sub-domain to the existing blog? - I thangyawww - Ontheliner

    The blog I need help with is 1980sontheline.wordpress.com.

  2. tellyworth
    Staff

    You can't add a subdomain to an existing blogname.wordpress.com address (you can't make subdomain.blogname.wordpress.com, in other words).

    If instead of blogname.wordpress.com you want blogname.com, I'd recommend the $15 domain registration + domain mapping option. Just go to the Upgrades / Domains tab of your blog, type in the domain name you want, and follow the prompts.

    (You can, if you prefer, register the domain elsewhere and then buy the $9.97 domain mapping elsewhere, but it's more expensive and harder to set up).

    If you specifically want to be able to do (for example) blog1.blogname.com and blog2.blogname.com, you'll need to register a domain elsewhere and do some complicated stuff.

    If all you want is blog1.wordpress.com and blog2.wordpress.com, just go to http://wordpress.com/signup/ and create a second blog - it's free and takes seconds.

  3. ontheliner
    Member

    Thanks tellyworth. What I was really asking was how much space does a sub-domain open up? Is it equivalent to what a top domain gives you?

    On its domain mapping page WP support offers this: "You can map a subdomain to your WordPress.com blog for 9.97 credits ($9.97) per year. This is ideal for web administrators who already have a functioning website at a primary domain, example.com, and wish to use blog.example.com as the official domain/URL for their WordPress.com-powered blog"

  4. bubel
    Staff

    If you purchase a domain and map it to your WordPress.com blog, your available space/capacity does not increase. All WordPress.com blogs have 3GB of free space available to them. If you would like more, you would need one of our Space Upgrades - http://support.wordpress.com/space-upgrade/ .

    Note that when you map a domain to your blog, the blog's content remains the same; only the domain/URL of the blog is masked.

  5. mark
    Support

    It adds portability.

    If you buy domain.com and have it mapped here then if you ever decide to move to self-hosting that domain goes with you. So you don't have to tell everyone you have moved, you don't lose any search engine links.

    http://support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/custom-email/
    It also means you get email addresses. I have email addresses which are mark@ and you can't get those anywhere on any service, probably not your name either. My domain, my email address. Also useful when services refuse to take free email domains (gmail, yahoo, live) as registration.

    So the $9.97 isn't just about space.

  6. ontheliner
    Member

    Thanks, both, we 're getting there slowly but not just yet.

    Bubel, you remind me that even if I were to pay for a sub-domain, the overall space allocated to the entire blog remains 3GB, so the sub-domain represents no increase overall.

    Mark, you add the info that the price for the main domain includes an attractive email propostion. But you don't mention a sub-domain.

    I'm still seeking clarification on what a sub-domain page looks like. As it is equivalent to a "department" of a large company's website, I am making the assumption that the sub-domain's "home page" will carry all the furniture of the top-domain home page: ie, the header and the sidebar contents will be identical. In other words the sub-domain's opening page will not have its own header, nor will the sidebar be dedicated to the content of the sub-domain, but will look substantially like the top-domain home page. All of which are severe limitations, so I can see few advantages in paying extra for a sub-domain.

  7. husdal
    Member

    Domains/subdomains works like this:

    I register a domain.com with a registrar, e.g. pairnic.com. That costs me $19/yr for the domain. Then, at wordpress.com, I map my blogname.wordpress.com to domain.com. That costs another $9.97/yr.

    At the domain management interface at my registrar I add a subdomain (usually by adding a CNAME record) that points subdomainX.domain.com to blognameX.wordpress.com, subdomainY.domain.com to blognameY.wordpress.com etc. That doesn't cost anything. Now I need to map blognameX.wordpress.com to suddomainX.wordpress.com and so on. For every subdomain, that adds another $9.97 at wordpress.com. And for every subdomain I need to create and maintain another wordpress.com blog, which also means that for every subdomain you have another 3GB of space.

    In order for the subdomain to carry the furniture of the top domain you need to use the same theme. But, in essence, they are separate blogs that are not linked. The home page of each subdomain is the subdomain home page. In order to link to the top home page, you must make a manual link, e.g. in the sidebar.

    Is that clearer?

  8. ontheliner
    Member

    Thanks, husdal. That's the info I was asking for!

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