A subdomain is a website address, which is under a main, or a root domain. One example is something.domain.com, where domain.com is the main domain address, while "something" is the subdomain below it. Each and every subdomain can have its own site and records i.e. apart from employing the domain name as part of the whole web address, a subdomain can be entirely independent and also hosted by a different service provider. Employing a subdomain can be quite handy if you want to have different web sites that are related in some way. For instance, you may have a web-based store under the main domain as well as a forum under a subdomain so as to offer means for your clients to ask questions and share experiences regarding your products. The benefit of employing a subdomain rather than a subfolder is that the web sites are going to be separated, so you are able to update one of them or perform maintenance without affecting the other.