Exploring more about blogging and web hosting led me to discover and learning more about subdomain/s. Read more about my experience and thoughts here.

Subdomain Blogs: Yay or Nay?

As you all know, I have this blog that has entries spanning from personal posts to food, travel and the broad scope of the lifestyle niche. My friends would describe as an OC person. Here’s a short story:

I was given a set of pens by someone but unfortunately, it was not arranged by color nor by its intensity. When I was sick (down with colds and cough), I was battling out the feeling of being sick. Now, what I did was to arrange those set according to the kind of pen, the color and the intensity of the color. So, that is how OC I am when it comes to my stuff.

Now, back to the main story. I became OC as well with my blog. I have created a homepage and a separate blog page where it all contains my posts. This is because my eyes got tired of looking at many elements at once. Then, I found myself reading about subdomains and eventually creating a blog with a subdomain.

What made me think about pushing this idea is that my hosting package from Pangalan.com offers unlimited domains. My package is under the PN Sakto. There are other packages being offered at Pangalan.

Moreover, I browsed another website that has a subdomain that redirects to another site. In short, that really pushed me to research more and learn more about it! Not only that but I also dreamed of making a separate blog that contains all my calligraphy journey.

Here are some of the references I read:

• Subdomains vs Subdirectories
• What is a Subdomain?
• What are Subdomains?

The Experience

Disclaimer: I am going to share my experience and also tell you that I am not an IT graduate nor a techie person when it comes to things like this. It’s a good thing that I have friends who are in the field that I could ask about matters like this. Also, special mention to the support of Pangalan.com since they always do their best to assist their customers with their queries.

First, I was going for this: http://blog.mariaisquixotic.com but when I learned that I have to move all my blog posts (whether calligraphy related or not) to the new sub-blog, I retaliated since it would too much effort. However, I was able to create the address, WordPress dashboard and customize it a bit.

The sad part was when I tried to execute a multi-site. This feature would unite the two dashboards into one and you’ll just have to click your way from the main blog to the sub-blog. At first, it was successful. I was happy. BUT, when something came up and I don’t really know what was the cause, I just deleted it.

The event that burst my bubble was both of the blogs went down. It was like all the effort of learning and trying, it was gone! I panicked for a bit and did some research for a loophole. Good thing there was! All I had to do was insert a code and it would eventually reset the codes I edited to the way it was. As if nothing happened!

Sadly, I was not able to take photos nor screenshots because I did not expect that I will be sharing this funny experience in this blog. However, with the current settings, I was able to take a photo. Although, I had to hide some details for privacy purposes.

cPanel for Pangalan.com

So as you can see, I changed it to http://scribbles.mariaisquixotic.com because I got frustrated with the other one. Try clicking it and it will lead you to the sub-blog that only has calligraphy-related posts. This way, I could keep it clean without messing up with the main blog’s contents.

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Realizations

It really needs hard work and if you are not that familiar with things like this, it’s better to do research very well. Moreover, do not do anything rash without prior knowledge because it’s hard to do these processes when no one’s there to guide you or help you. Also, it’s always nice to ask the support team of your web host and check how things are with the content management system (in other words, WordPress).

Remember that it will be like managing two blogs already but under one domain. No further expense unless the hosting package has a limitation. Don’t be shy in asking your hosting provider about the technical aspects as this is part of their job as well.

But remember, don’t be too harsh when asking. You’re not the only client they have. So imagine the stress they are getting!

Now that I have my main blog and sub-blog, this makes me happier! It makes me feel like a pro managing two blogs (technically). It may seem to be tiring for some but when you love what you do and the reason behind, it will bring you positivity.

To summarize, I’ll be listing the pros and cons of having a sub-blog. Of course, this is only from my perspective. You are always entitled to have your own thoughts about it.

Pros:

• Everything feels cleaner and more organized. This is good especially for people who are OC like me.
• It makes me feel like a pro. Honestly. I mean, managing two blogs (technically) is like the dream for a non-IT person like me.
• I can experiment with the layouts and themes without endangering my main blog. I could try another theme for it without removing the codes I did on the main blog.
• Creating a sub-blog without thinking of another platform, domain mapping, and other technical stuff is easy for someone like me. I don’t have to worry about which platform to choose nor how to edit the template. I could just use the one in the main blog and adapt it.

Cons:

• Figuring things out on your own can be time-consuming. Be sure to make time for research and data gathering. Take notes if you must. Google is always there if ever your friends are asleep.
• Moving the posts from the main blog to the sub-blog could take time as well. So, make sure that you are really dedicated to doing this. It took me hours since I was so OC about the categories and the tags. Imagine the creative flow during the wee hours in the morning.
• Downtime. When the domain of the main blog is down, surely the sub-blog will be down. Remember, it’s under the domain. They’re connected like that!

I hope you absorbed something from this story of mine. Honestly, think hard about doing this. That’s all. 😃

P.S. This post has some affiliate links that will allow me to earn if you successfully purchased something from the link it will lead you too.

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What do you think? Will you have one too?