Combining 3 blogs into one multisite blog

Probably the easiest would be to make new subdomains.

That is if you’re using foobar, zorkman and bazbot for your subdomains, on your MultiSite network make foobr2, zorkmn2 and bazbt2 (the names are important, hang on to that) and export them. foobar into foobr2 etc etc.

THEN. Design your sites how you like them, get them looking right.

Once you’re done, search/replace your DB, looking for foobr2. and replace with foobar. (yes, the . is important). That will avoid issues with Serialization.

Then you just delete the old named domains and let wildcard take over.

Thank you Ipstenu. Okay so basically I have to create new subdomains and move the old sites into them, then in the multisite’s DB, replacing every NEWSUBDOMAIN. with OLDSUBDOMAIN.
Will this procedure not affect the current sub domain’s ranking?
BTW, could you please also relate to the main domain? currently the main domain is empty , but after creating the multisite I want the main domain to show the contents of all 3 subsites (sub domains) using Sitewide tags. Will that be possible?
Ipstenu if I am willing you to do that for me do you do it and how much ?
If so please send me on iceq and the domain is hotmail.co.uk

Okay so basically I have to create new subdomains and move the old sites into them, then in the multisite’s DB, replacing every NEWSUBDOMAIN. with OLDSUBDOMAIN.

Yep.

Will this procedure not affect the current sub domain’s ranking?

Shouldn’t unless you change the URL structure.

after creating the multisite I want the main domain to show the contents of all 3 subsites (sub domains) using Sitewide tags. Will that be possible?

Yes ??

Ipstenu if I am willing you to do that for me do you do it and how much ?

I’m not currently for hire, but thank you. Check out https://codepoet.com or https://jobs.wordpress.net to hire people.

Okay. will keep you updated. Thank you again.

Hi again.

I created the subdomains and installed and configred Multisite.
I created sub sites and gave them the same names as the new subdomains I created.. for instance x1.al-rasid.com x2.al-rasid.com

But now accessing x1.al-rasid.com gives :
Error Code 11001: Host not found
I used MU Domain Mapping plugin, added entered my server’s IP address in the plugin settings then created a new mapping, and entered the x1.al-rasid.com and pointed it to the respective subsite ID, but that throws the same error.

What did I miss ?

Why are you using a domain mapping plugin?

You didn’t mention you needed to map domains, you were talking about SUB domains. Different things. Domain mapping is to point seconddomain.com to use site2.domain.com

Hi Ipstenu. I only used the plugin after the normal way failed !
As I said above, I firstly created new subdomains and then created new subsites and gave them the same names as the new sub domains (my Network was for some reason automatically configured to work with subdomains rather than sub directories).. But that did not work, then I tried with the plugin.

If you’re not mapping DOMAINS, remove the plugin and stop with that ??

I created the subdomains and installed and configred Multisite.
I created sub sites and gave them the same names as the new subdomains I created.. for instance x1.al-rasid.com x2.al-rasid.com

Okay, is x1 the name of the existing subdomain or the temporary new one?

X1 , X2 , X3 are the new temoprary sub domains, that look exactly like the names of the new 3 subsites I created, which were configured to be accessible via subdomains (the same sub domain names I created , namely x1, x2 , x3).

Did you set up wildcard subdomains?

guess what. I have no idea what that is. But since subdomains used to function fine (still working fine, actually), I guess that I HAVE set that thing up before ??

Okay. Actually no ?? We should assume you did NOT set that up before.

How did you make a subdomain for x1, x2 and x3?

Please note, I’m not asking you to go make subdomains, I’m asking what you DID. If you did nothing, DO NOT GO MAKE THEM. Just tell us what you did.

I assume you’re asking how I created them on my hosting account.
I simply logged into cpanel, went to domains manager, created a new subdomain after I selected the main domain it will be associated with. Among the options it asks about the directory with which the sub domain will be connected, and I entered anything because I want to delete that later and point the sub domain to the existing folder.

Okay ?? That’s great information. Because it tells me what you might have done wrong.

If you’re familiar with traditional subdomains, you get a ‘directory’ like /public_html/x1

With Multisite, you want those directories to point to /public_html/, which is where you installed WordPress.

So delete the subdomains for x1, x2 and x2 out of cpanel, and do this instead: Make one called *

Yeah, just the star. Have it point to the ‘root’ of your site, where WordPress is installed. See if that works. And that is called a wildcard subdomain.

Sorry but your comment was a bit vague to me.

In the beginning you advised me to create 3 new subdomains, which I did.
Now you said “So delete the subdomains for x1, x2 and x2” ..Did you mean “delete the subdirectories” and not “subdomains” ?
Anyway I deleted the subdomains, and then, when creating a (*) subdomain, Hostmonster automatically gives it the path public_html/wildcard
and I created it.