Short answer: what should strengthen the main site, such as a blog of articles, goes better in a folder (asuaempresa.ao/blog). What is technically separate, such as a test site, an application, a shop on another platform or a customer area, goes better on a subdomain (shop.asuaempresa.ao). The rule: a folder joins, a subdomain separates.
A folder is a path inside the same site. It can be just a section of the same WordPress, or a separate install in a real folder. A subdomain is a new name in front of your domain, and in cPanel it gets its own folder of files.
Side by side
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Folder (asuaempresa.ao/blog) |
Subdomain (blog.asuaempresa.ao) |
| Technology |
The same application, or a separate install inside a real folder. |
It can be a different application, a different install and even a different PHP version, without touching the main site. |
| Isolation |
A problem in the blog can affect the whole site, if it is the same install. |
Files and database kept apart. An accident in one does not take the other down. |
| For Google |
Tends to count as part of the same site, and what you publish helps the whole. |
Tends to be treated as a separate place, which has to earn its own presence. |
| Login |
Shared with the rest of the site. |
Separate, unless you set it up otherwise. |
| SSL certificate |
Covered by the domain’s. |
Gets its own, automatically, in a few minutes up to an hour. |
| Effort to create |
A section, or a new folder. |
Create it in cPanel, under Domains, at no cost. If your DNS is elsewhere, the record is created there. |
How to choose, in four questions
| 1 |
Is it content you want to help the main site in search? Folder. This is the blog, the help pages, the news.
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| 2 |
Is it a different application or technology? Subdomain. A Node.js or Python application, a shop on another platform, an internal panel.
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| 3 |
Does it need to be isolated? Subdomain. A test site, a client’s site, an area you do not fully trust.
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| 4 |
Not sure yet how it will grow? Pick the folder if it is content and the subdomain if it is another technology. What costs is not choosing, it is changing later.
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Creating a subdomain is in adding another domain or a subdomain, and, if your DNS is on Cloudflare, in creating a subdomain on Cloudflare.
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Moving from one to the other later changes every address. Moving a blog with months of articles from a subdomain to a folder (or the other way round) means redirecting each address with a 301, page by page: 301 or 302. Decide before there is content.
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A test site on a subdomain is the safest use of all, but remember to hide it from Google (password or “noindex”): if it is seen, there are suddenly two copies of the same site. The method is in a test site before touching what is live.
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