Moving to Multisite – Question

  • I am thinking of moving to Multisite, here is the background that you need to know.

    I have unlimited domains on my hosting.

    domain names below are just examples.

    For the longest I would have

    cutedog.com with it’s own hosting and cutedog.org/cutedog.net/cutedog.ca as redirects to cutedog.com

    Now think of that times 20. 20 .com domains with their own separate hosting accounts and their corresponding .org/.net/.ca pointing to their corresponding .com.

    Since I used to pay $4.95 per month for 2 years in advance ($135.33 including taxes), $135.33 x 20 = $2,700. This doesn’t count the domain prices.

    I decided to cancel all the hosting accounts but one. Keep cutedog.com as an add-on domain with that one hosting account (cancel cutedog.com’s hosting account) and have cutedog.ca/.org/.net redirect to cutedog.com.

    Repeat the process 18-19 more times.

    So all those domains are sitting on one’s hosting account. I am saving lots of money. I like to pay 2 years in advance for hosting.

    So from what I have above…what if I do

    one.com (being the main (and only) hosting account).
    cutedog.one.com representing cutedog.com and cutedog.org/.net/.ca redirecting to it?

    Thus keeping ONE Multisite installation or keep cutedog and the other .com domains as add-on to one.com?

    I would want people to see cutedog.com but really they are going to cutedog.one.com. I think that is domain mapping, right?

    when each .com domain had their own hosting, they had their own WordPress installation (“standard” installation not MS).

    I got rid of hosting, but now I am thinking of putting them all into MS installation that way I save time on updates for themes/plugins/core.

    If let’s say cutedog.com and cuteparrot.com both have same theme and I change the footer.php, I would be changing the footer for both cutedog AND cuteparrot, correct? Right now with their own separate installation (and both having same theme), I can change the footer.php from cutedog without affecting cuteparrot, correct?

    How would Akismet work in multisite? all those domains have their own Akismet key thing. Would they keep their own key thing or one whole key for the Network?

    I am thinking of this way too much. Help me out.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • Thus keeping ONE Multisite installation or keep cutedog and the other .com domains as add-on to one.com?

    For SEO it’s better not to have the same content on different domains. So, I’d redirect rather than making it an addon.

    I would want people to see cutedog.com but really they are going to cutedog.one.com. I think that is domain mapping, right?

    That’s correct.

    If let’s say cutedog.com and cuteparrot.com both have same theme and I change the footer.php, I would be changing the footer for both cutedog AND cuteparrot, correct?

    Indeed.

    Right now with their own separate installation (and both having same theme), I can change the footer.php from cutedog without affecting cuteparrot, correct?

    Obviously. If you want to achieve this on a multisite you can create a child theme and add the footer.php to it.

    How would Akismet work in multisite? all those domains have their own Akismet key thing. Would they keep their own key thing or one whole key for the Network?

    I use anti-spam instead, so I didn’t try it, but it’s said that you can add the key to your wp-config.php.

    define('WPCOM_API_KEY','your-key');

    Thread Starter Miroslav Glavi?

    (@miroslavglavic)

    Sorry but I should of mentioned… Cutedog, cuteparrot, one.com are all different contents. Nothing to do with each other.

    Ah, my bad… I think I’m getting what you mean… To make the different domains work with one multisite, you need to add an A record to your DNS with the server IP as value. Maybe that’s what happens when you create an addon domain though, I’m not very familiar with that. Best read the domain mapping instructions (if that’s the plugin you’re planning to use).

    Thread Starter Miroslav Glavi?

    (@miroslavglavic)

    A lot of what you said is like you speaking a foreign language.

    Domain Mapping and MultiSite networks are not my best skills. The closest I tried to MultiSite is using directories. I never used subdomains.

    I would want cutedog.com to show cutedog.one.com instead of just forward to cutedog.one.com

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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