How to Use Subdomains for Parallel Downloads

Using subdomains for parallel downloads allows you to host elements of your site, such as images and videos, on the subdomains. You then can link to the images from your main site. This can help speed up the loading time of your website by making the browser act as though the elements are on different web servers. This means that the browser will be able to download more than two page elements at once, speeding up the page load time.

Instructions

1. Open your Web browser and navigate to your website's control panel URL. Log into your website's control panel and scroll to the Domains section. Click the icon marked "Subdomains."

2. Locate the Create a Subdomain section near the top of the Subdomains page. Type the name you want the subdomain to have in the Subdomain text field. The Document Root field will fill itself automatically based on the subdomain name. Click the "Create" button to create the subdomain. Make several subdomains to use for hosting your page elements, such as images and videos.

3. Divide the elements you want to display on a web page into equal groups that match the number of subdomains you created. For example, if you have four subdomains created for parallel downloads, divide the page elements into four equal groups.

4. Open your FTP client and upload each of the element groups to a different subdomain. To upload them, drag the elements from the local computer side of the FTP client to the live Web server side, and drop them on the appropriate subdomain folder names. Wait while the elements upload.

5. Create your Web page for your main site. Add the page elements by linking to the element's URL on the subdomain. For example, add an image hosted on the subdomain to the main site page by typing the following:

   <img src="http://subdomain1.site.com/image.jpg" />

   Replace "subdomain1" with the subdomain folder name. Replace "site.com" with your site's domain name. Replace "image.jpg" with the name of the image file.

6. Upload the main site page to the main website via the FTP client. Drag the page's HTML file from the local computer side to the live Web server side, and drop it in the site's public_html folder, or a folder inside the public_html folder, to upload it. Wait for it to upload and display on the website with the page elements acting as parallel downloads from the subdomains.

References

• Papermashup: Using Subdomains to Speed Up Your Site
• WebsiteOptimization.com: Optimize Parallel Downloads to Minimize Object Overhead