Once you have built your first self-hosted website, you can build secondary websites that share the same domain name. With this web hosting account, your first website will likely be found on the main domain that you signed up with, otherwise known as your root domain. For example, let’s say that you signed up for the domain name janedoe.example.com. Using subdomains and directories, you can build additional websites that also sit on your domain.
Directories are additional websites built on your domain and can be recognized by the address: janedoe.example.com/directory
Subdomains are additional websites built on your domain and can be recognized by the address: subdomain.janedoe.example.com
You may only ever need one website, with the option to create more pages to publish content as your site grows. If this is the case you may not want to create second websites, but it is useful to know what is possible in case you what to do this in the future.
You will need to create secondary websites if you ever want to test new features (e.g. plugins) on your existing website without the risk of breaking or if you need to create a space on your domain that looks or functions differently to the rest of your domain.
See example scenarios of when you might want to create additional websites through use of directories and sub-subdomains on your domain.
Testing a new idea
This example is for when you want to install a new plugin to your existing website but don’t want to risk breaking your website (the new plugin may clash with existing plugins), or you want to play around with how the plugin works before making it live on your existing website. In this scenario you will likely already have people visiting your website, and don’t want to risk anyone visiting your website to see broken content.
You can clone your existing website and install it on a directory to play around with how this new plugin will work with your current content, theme, bespoke code or plugins. You may do this just because you are curious about how the new feature might work, or you may do this with the aim of making this change live on your existing website.
As this is a test website, make sure to make the directory name an obscure word or phrase that your regular website visitors are unlikely to stumble upon, e.g. ‘janedoe.example.com/test101’
If you decide to make this test website you main website, you can replace your website with this site using Installatron’s cloning features. Alternatively, if you have played around with the new feature but don’t want to use this test website you can delete it when you don’t want it anymore.
New function, new space
This example is for when you need part of your domain to have a different function or purpose to the rest of your domain. Your main website might display information about your projects and work, but you may want to create a website that is a project in of itself such as interactive content or a participatory site where visitors add their own content.
In this case you may or may not want this second site to look like your main website. If you make them both have the same theme, branding and header menu the two will look as if they are the same website to visitors. If you make them look different with different themes and branding they will look like distinct spaces. Think about what you want the purpose of each website to be and how you want those visiting the space to experience the two sites.
You can begin building this second website as a test site, and then when you are happy with it you can clone it to a directory name that you want to share widely. The directory name should ideally be short and related to the purpose of the site, e.g. ‘janedoe.example.com/projectname’. If you want visitors to go between these two websites make sure to list both as items on the navigation menu on each site.
