Create, delete, and view site collections and subsites
Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007
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Topic Last Modified: 2017-01-25
A site collection is a set of Web sites that can have the same owner and share administration settings. Each site collection contains a top-level Web site and can contain one or more subsites.
Before creating a site from the SharePoint Central Administration Web site, you must create a site collection. Subsites are created within top-level sites and subsites, and they cannot be created within Central Administration.
Web sites on SharePoint Web applications are organized into site collections. Each site collection has a top-level Web site. This top-level Web site can have multiple subsites, and each subsite can have multiple subsites, for as many levels as required. When you create a site collection, a top-level site is automatically created. Each site collection can have only a single top-level site.
The hierarchy of top-level sites and subsites enables, for example, users to have a main working site for a team or division, plus individual working sites or shared sites for projects. Top-level Web sites and subsites allow different levels of control over the features and settings for sites. The administrator of a site collection can control settings and features for both the top-level Web site and any subsites beneath it. For example, in addition to the standard administration tasks for any site, an administrator of a site collection can perform the following tasks:
Add, delete, or change site collection administrators.
Manage other sites in the site collection hierarchy.
View usage statistics and storage space allocation.
Manage the site collection Recycle Bin.
Manage Web Part, template, and workflow galleries.
Manage the features that are available in the site collection.
Configure settings, such as regional settings, for the top-level Web site and all subsites.
The administrator of a subsite can control settings and features for only that subsite, and the administrator of the next subsite below can control settings and features for only that subsite. For example, an administrator of a subsite can perform the following tasks:
Add, delete, or change user permissions, if unique permissions have been set.
View usage analysis data.
Change regional settings.
Manage the master page, site content type, and site columns galleries.
Manage Web discussions and alerts.
Change the site name and description, theme, and home page organization.
You can view the site collections and their subsites from Central Administration. To manage the site collections, you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group. Similarly, to manage the subsites within a site collection, you must be a member of the Site Owners group.
To create, view, or delete site collection and subsites, perform one of the following procedures:
See Also
Concepts
Manage site collection ownership
Analyze site usage
Configure settings for sites
Manage site collection administrators (Office SharePoint Server 2007)