Adding Wildcard Subdomains (Linux)

Use wildcard subdomains to redirect visitors from non-existent subdomains to one of your websites, commonly, to your main website. The typical use cases of this feature are:

• Improve website organization and run marketing campaigns.

  For example, you do not have the vps-limited-offer subdomain but wish to forward users from limited-vps-offer.example.com to example.com.

• Help users reach your website even if they mistyped a subdomain name.

  It is a widespread mistake to mistype a website name if it has the leading www prefix (for example, typing ww.example.com).

• Finally, some website applications (WordPress) use wildcard subdomains to create dynamic subdomains for convenience and better user experience.

Note

Traffic to existent subdomains will not be affected in any way if you add a wildcard subdomain.

How to Add Wildcard Subdomains

You can add one wildcard subdomain per each of domain names under a subscription. For this, go to Websites & Domains and add a subdomain which name is “*” to one of your domain names. Example: *.example.com. If you wish this subdomain to have a custom set of scripts or website content, specify a custom document root for this subdomain.

Limitations of Wildcard Subdomains

Wildcard subdomains act like typical subdomains with the following exceptions:

• Linux-only feature. Currently, wildcard subdomains are supported only on Plesk for Linux.
• Renaming is not available. It is not possible to rename such subdomains.
• No DNS zone. This type of subdomains does not have own zone record in the Plesk’s DNS server. Instead, they have the A record that points to the IP address associated with a corresponding domain name.
• Installation of APS apps is not allowed. Plesk users are unable to install APS apps to wildcard subdomains.
• No Presence Builder sites. Plesk users are unable to edit and publish sites to these subdomains.