Subdomain after domain or before domain??

Question

Domain Name System

maps.google.com. - maps is a subdomain.
But if you follow the link, we get
google.com/maps

What does this mean? Is the subdomain written after the domain or before??

Answer 1

"maps.google.com - maps is a subdomain" - that's all
google.com/maps - here the domain is "ru", the second level domain is "google", and the rest is the path.
The fact that maps allegedly "passed" after - it just happened and it seems to you. You were redirected from "maps.google.com" to "google.com/maps" and nothing more.

Answer 2

THE ANSWERS ARE KILLING ME

maps.google.com. - maps is a subdomain

NO. maps is HOST.
But it can be a domain in cases - www.maps.google.com, where www is a host, maps is a 3rd level domain, google is a 2nd level domain, com is a first level domain.
Maps.google.com has an IP address registered in DNS. And when you get to the Webserver, it replaces the request, for example, for Apache there is the Apache Module mod_rewrite module