Merge a subweb

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When you merge a subweb to a parent Web, it becomes another folder with Web pages under the parent Web. You will lose no information on pages within the subweb; however, the subweb loses whatever unique permissions it might have had. Any subwebs below the merged subweb are promoted to subwebs under the parent Web site.

About webs and subwebs

When working with a large Web site, it's often easier to break up the site into smaller subwebs. A subweb is a complete SharePoint team Web site that is located in a subdirectory of the root Web site or of another subweb. Each subweb can have many levels of subdirectories. A Web that has subwebs is called a parent Web.

A root Web site is a Web site that is the top-level content directory of a Web server or, in a multi-hosting environment, of a virtual Web server. The content of the root Web site can be contained in many levels of subdirectories. However, there is only one root Web site per Web server or virtual Web server.

For example, if a company has an intranet, each major department can have a subweb. That way, each group can manage its own site and the main home page in the parent Web site can provide links between the departmental sites.

There are several benefits to setting up your team Web site with subwebs:

  • Each subweb can be maintained by a different owner.

  • Each subweb can maintain separate security settings.

  • Performance can improve, because the time required to recalculate hyperlinks is directly proportional to the number and size of the documents stored in a single Web.

Even though subwebs appear below other Web sites in the Web server's file system and URL space, the content of a subweb is not included in its parent Web site. An author of a SharePoint team Web site does not automatically have permission to edit any of its subwebs, and users cannot browse from a parent Web site to a subweb. SharePoint Team Services maintains this separation of content automatically.

About managing subwebs

Using the Site Administration pages you can:

  • Create or delete subwebs.

  • Merge subwebs.

  • Change the name or description of a subweb.

  • Recalculate the links for a web or subweb.

  • Specify unique permissions for the subweb or use the user accounts and roles of the parent Web.

Administrative options not available when working in a subweb

Some site administration options are not available from within a subweb, including:

Also, if a subweb is set up to use the parent Web site's account and roles, options for managing accounts and roles do not appear.

To configure any of the above options, you must use the site administration pages from the root-level Web site of the server or virtual server. See your network administrator or ISP for more information.

Note   If you're using FrontPage 2002 to manage a SharePoint team Web site, you do not publish the team Web site as you would regular FrontPage Server Extensions-enabled Web. Instead, you simply open the Web from within FrontPage and edit it directly on the server. For more information, see your network administrator or ISP.

  1. On the Site Administration page, under Subwebs, click Merge a subweb.

  2. Click the Web name drop-down list, and then click the name of the subweb that you would like to merge with the parent Web.

  3. Click Merge Subweb.

Note   You cannot merge a subweb if it contains document libraries or SharePoint Team Services lists such as discussion boards or task lists. If you want to merge a subweb that contains a list, you must first export the list to a spreadsheet program (such as Microsoft Excel 2002), then merge the subweb, and then import the list again. To merge a subweb that contains a document library, you must copy the documents out of the document library, delete the document library, merge the subweb, create a new document library, and then copy the documents into the new document library.