How To Host Subdomain On Different Server Account

If you are planning to point or host subdomain on different server web hosting, then you don’t need to worry much, it’s just a small record change.

Recently we were experimenting with our blog’s subdomain for hosting a forum. We had so many choices like bbPress, Discourse, and other open source forums, so we decided to give each a try on our demo blogs before finalizing one. HellBound Bloggers (HBB) is hosted on A Small Orange (ASO) at the moment, but we wanted to test our forum on our subdomain on a different server, we picked InMotion Hosting for this.

Even though I know this is possible with the help of type ‘A’ record, I haven’t personally done this much anywhere. So I decided to share my experience + this simple tip to point your subdomain to a different server account, thanks to DNS configuration.

You can do this via two ways:

1) Using your Domain Registrar (say GoDaddy)

2) Using your Web Hosting Provider (say InMotion Hosting)

But unfortunately, some of the domain registrars won’t allow us to edit their DNS records if we are not hosting with them, if you face any such issues, then you can always opt for the cPanel option, which is pretty same and easy.

Host Subdomain On Different Server

Log into your cPanel account. Head over to the “Domains” section, under that, pick the “Advanced Zone Editor” option. You can refer the screenshot below:

Now, we’ll be adding a type ‘A’ record so that your subdomain points to a different server. Pick the Type as ‘A’, Name as the ‘subdomain’ name (say blog, forum, etc.), TTL (Time-to-live) as default one or 14400, and Address as your ‘I.P. Address’ of the server you want to host your subdomain. If you are not sure about the IP Address, you can contact your web hosting support or check your welcome/installation email.

Do check what you have typed twice or thrice, then click on the “Add Record” button. That’s all you have to do.

That’s it! Now you have to wait for some time for the DNS to propagate. We did this for our forum recently, and it worked like a charm. If you have any other queries do let us know in the comments below.