Connect a subdomain to WordPress.com

You can create a subdomain of any domain you own. This guide will show you how to connect a subdomain to your site on WordPress.com.

A subdomain has an extra piece of text before your main domain (called the root domain.) For example, if your root domain is yourgroovydomain.com, you can create subdomains such as blog.yourgroovydomain.com and shop.yourgroovydomain.com.

In this guide, you will learn how to create a subdomain to display a website hosted on WordPress.com.

If your root domain is managed through WordPress.com, and you want to create a subdomain that will display an external site, review our instructions to connect a subdomain to an external site.

If you would like to create a subdomain for a specific landing page, our guide on setting up subdomain forwarding will help you through the process.

Identify the WordPress.com site to which you want to connect the subdomain to. If you don’t have a site, you can create a new site. Connecting a subdomain is included with any paid WordPress.com plan (each site requires its own plan.)

To connect a subdomain to a site on WordPress.com, take the following steps:

1. Visit the dashboard of the site you wish to use with your subdomain.
   • If you don’t yet have a site for your subdomain, create a new site in your account here.
2. Navigate to Upgrades → Domains (or Hosting → Domains if using WP Admin).
3. Click the down arrow to the right of the “Add a domain” button.
4. Select “Use a Domain I own” from the drop-down menu:

5. Type the full subdomain you want to use, such as blog.yourgroovydomain.com for example.
6. Click the “Next” button.
7. On the next screen, click “Select” in the “Connect your domain” section:

8. If the site does not have a WordPress.com plan, you will be taken to check out and complete your purchase. Otherwise, you’ll see a message that your subdomain has been created.

If you have connected multiple domain names to your WordPress.com site, you may be prompted to verify that you own the domain name before starting the setup process.

If your root domain uses WordPress.com name servers, our system will have already set up the required DNS records for your subdomain. You can test your new subdomain now to ensure it’s working as expected.

If your root domain does not use WordPress.com name servers, you’ll be prompted to make some changes in your DNS so that your subdomain can function.

The recommended method is adding NS records to your subdomain’s settings page. Alternatively, you can click the “advanced setup” link to use A records (IP addresses) and CNAME records. Note that it’s not possible to map a www subdomain to any site other than the root domain.

If you have navigated away from the subdomain setup flow and need to return to the DNS Records setup, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Upgrades → Domains (or Hosting → Domains if using WP Admin)
2. Click the subdomain you created in step 2.
3. Click the “DNS Records“ option.
   • If the DNS for the subdomain has not been set up yet, you’ll see a warning that you are using external name servers.
   • Click the “Update your name servers now” link in the warning to return to the DNS setup page.
4. Open a new browser tab and log in to your account with your domain provider (where your name servers are set.)
5. Enter the necessary DNS records for your subdomain in your domain provider’s DNS settings.
6. Back on WordPress.com, click “Verify connection“.

You can remove a subdomain from your WordPress.com site by following these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Upgrades → Domains (or Hosting → Domains if using WP Admin)
3. Click the subdomain you want to remove.
4. Click the “Delete” button under “Remove this domain connection permanently” on the domains settings page.

On WordPress.com, you cannot create a subdirectory, where a URL like yourgroovysite.com/blog would display a separate site or WordPress installation from the site on yourgroovysite.com. However, there are other ways to achieve a similar goal:

• Use a subdomain instead, like blog.yourgroovysite.com, which lets you create a separate site under the same domain. Subdomains perform just as well as subdirectories in search rankings when properly optimized.
• Create pages on the existing site. For example, create a new page on yourgroovysite.com for blog posts using the URL yourgroovysite.com/blog and configure it to display posts.
• Use categories for blog sections. You can create a category-based structure (e.g., yourgroovysite.com/category/blog) to organize content similar to a subdirectory.