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What is WordPress Multisite

by bernt & torsten

I have built a lot of WordPress sites along with my own sites. I managed them all too using what is called WordPress Multisite Networks.

What is WordPress Multisite?

WordPress multisite network is a collection of web sites that all share the same single WordPress installation, in another word you only have one WordPress installed and within the WordPress administration, you can launch a new site with the click of a button.

You can set up public and private WordPress Multisite Networks

• A public WordPress multisite network is untrusted, anyone can signup and create a site (sometimes paid) e.g WordPress.com. An issue that needs to be considered to set this up are file types, uploads, scripts, embeds, copyright, DMCA
• A private WordPress Multisite Network is a trusted, limited site and user creation e.g. company intranets. Issues to be concerned about are too many cooks, or none at all and code changes affect all sites.

What is Domain Mapping?

When setting up a Multisite install, the network is configured to create sites either as subdomains of the root site (e.g. subsite.network.com) or subfolders (e.g. network.com/subsite).

Domain Mapping is the process of mapping any arbitrary domain (called an alias) to load a site. If an alias of arbitrarydomain.com is set for the site network.com/subsite, the site and wp-admin interface can be accessed over either the alias or the original URL.

Read some of my other articles on WordPress multisite

• How to use WordPress Multisite features
• What you need to know about WordPress Multisite

For more in-depth details on doing and don’t for WordPress multisite check out this presentation.

Some resources you want to check out if you planning to set up a WordPress Multisite network.

• wpmudev: The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Multisite
• Domain “Mapping”
• WP Multi-Network
• HyperDB