A subdomain is a subset of your domain name. If "example.com" is your domain name, then "east.example.com" and "west.example.com" are its subdomains. A subdomain is any combination of letters, numbers, hyphens, etc. that appear before ".example.com". Right now, you're viewing this article on "support.siteswan.com" which is a subdomain of "siteswan.com".
Common use cases of subdomains are separating different types of content, or setting up landing pages for marketing campaigns, like collecting reviews, ordering online, among others.
With most domain registrars, you can create a very large number of subdomains for no additional fee. If you'd like to assign a subdomain to a SiteSwan site, it's a very similar procedure to the traditional Connect a Domain process, but it's actually fewer steps.
Here's how to connect a subdomain, using CheapNEasyDomains.com as our example:
(Note: the instructions are very similar for GoDaddy as well)
STEP 1
Log in to your account where you purchased the domain and locate the domain name that you want to connect under "Domains."
STEP 2
Click the icon in the top right next to the domain name that you want to connect, and click "Manage DNS".
STEP 3
From the DNS Management page, click the "Add Record" button on the top right to add a DNS Record.
STEP 4
For this example, let's pretend we want to assign "reviews.brotherjoespizza.com" to a site, which will serve as a landing page for customers to submit their reviews online. To do this, set the "Type" to CNAME . Set the "Name" to the subdomain (do not include the rest of the URL in this - only the characters that make up the subdomain text), which would be "reviews". Then set the "Value" to domain.multisiteadmin.com and click "Add record".
STEP 5
On your SiteSwan site, enter the full subdomain on your Settings tab and click the "Save All" button. It can then take up to 72 hours for the change to fully take place.
The process for adding the CNAME Record varies by registrar (some refer to this as Adding a Subdomain). Please consult with your domain name provider support for instructions on how to add CNAME Records for subdomains if it's not clear or evident.
NOTE: You do not need to change your domain's nameservers – only the CNAME Record needs to be created. You also do not need to purchase any hosting services for the domain.