Subdomains - Creating a website using a subdomain of an existing SquareSpace site

Site URL: https://www.mertonlawyers.com.au

Hi team,

We have an existing website https://www.mertonlawyers.com.au which we are looking to add a seperate part of the business to.

Is it possible to create an entirely new SquareSpace site using a sub domain of the existing site? 
For example could we create and host a seperate site at mertonlawyers.com.au/private-services while maintaining the existing mertonlawyers.com.au site? 

Hope this makes sense.

Appreciate any guidance! 

Yes it is possible:

Point a subdomain to a different Squarespace site

When you point a subdomain from one Squarespace site to another, Squarespace handles it like a third-party domain. This means you’ll use DNS records to connect it to the second site.

Tip: Instead of pointing a subdomain within Squarespace, you may want to move the root domain and then create a unique subdomain on the second site.

1. Start with the site you’re pointing from. Open Advanced DNS settings for the root domain that you’ll add the subdomain to.
2. From the Add Presets menu, select Subdomain. Enter the new subdomain name, such as blog or store, then click Add.
3. Go to the second site where the subdomain will point. In the Domains panel, click Use a Domain I Own.
4. Enter the full subdomain. For example, blog.yourdomain.com.
5. Click Connect From Provider.
6. Select Other as the domain provider, then click Connect Domain.
7. From the DNS Settings panel that appears, copy the unique code from the Host column.
8. Return to the first site’s Advanced Settings. Scroll down to Custom Records to create a new record. 
9. From the Record drop-down menu, select CNAME. 
10. In the Host field, paste the unique code.
11. In the Data field, enter verify.squarespace.com
12. Click Add, then click Save at the top of the page to add the record.
13. Return to the second site. In the Domains panel, disable the WWW prefix for the subdomain.
14. Test the connection by entering the subdomain in an incognito window.

Thank you for the response. So,for step and three and four. Do we need to purchase another domain with the subdomain name? 

Also, when someone clicks on learn.domain.com, I want them to go to that page with the courses. Not the main page.

How many subdomaijs can we have? 

Thank you

No, you don't need to purchase another domain, nor do you need to for the second site either as long as the sub domain is going to be the front facing domain for the site. The second site also has a built in .squarespace.com  domain that you can customize a bit.  I think the number of sub domains is unlimited. If you want to point a subdomain to a particular page, it is usually done with a web forwarding option, which I think Squarespace offers in domain settings. 

On 1/15/2022 at 2:51 PM, derricksrandomviews said:

No, you don't need to purchase another domain, nor do you need to for the second site either as long as the sub domain is going to be the front facing domain for the site. 

Could you please explain this? I mean we have our website https://www.highhoprecords.com
We'd like to have services.highhoprecords.com for some parallel services we want to run through our website.
We have a 3rd party domain provider and we have already connected successfully the subdomain.  But how can we start building something in subdomain? 
If I understood well, it's better to move the website to a new subdomain (e.g. label.highhoprecords.com) make it primary and THEN work on services.highhoprecords.com?
OR for every website hosted in a subdomain we have to purchase another site from SS?
Thank you.

Actually you can point any sub domain to a particular page of a website. A subdomain from a third party site can be pointed to a squarespace page, like  mydomain.com/blog. Those pages can be in the unlinked section of your site if you don't want them on the nav bar, and you can use links on a page and build a "faux" second site on the first one. 

The question I have is what do you want to happen, what subdomains are you using and where do you want them to go? You can pm with this info and I should be able to give you some guidance. 

This is very helpful, thank you! So I've created my subdomain successfully. How do I create the "new website" for the subdomain? Do I need to buy another squarespace website subscription? 

so yes, different from other site builders, i cannot simply change an unlinked page's URL to be a subdomain where you  set the 'URL slug" in the settings gear next to the page title in the left panel 'pages' menu.  Is there a place to do this?

This seems to be where people are still stuck after a lot of reading and back and forth.

i see people creating an entirely new ss account and pointing over the sub domain but that is so round about it makes no sense to me!

18 minutes ago, robynmarie said:

i cannot simply change an unlinked page's URL to be a subdomain where you  set the 'URL slug" in the settings gear next to the page title in the left panel 'pages' menu.  Is there a place to do this?

SS does not support this configuration. A page in your site <https://www.mysite.com/mypage> can not can turn into a sub-domain (third level domain) like <https://mypage.mysite.com/>.

However you may be able to forward <https://mypage.mysite.com/> to <https://www.mysite.com/mypage>.