Setting up Multisite (Sub-domain)

Hi @ehmehm12345 ,

I don’t have much personal experience with Multisite (other than installing and testing on a local environment) but did find some useful articles comparing sub-domain vs sub-directory. The answer on which you should choose really depends on the application, and the differences apeear to affect the Search Engine Optimization of your site. These two articles did the best job (in my opinion) of detailing the differences:

MOZ community question and answer on subdomain vs subdirectory

Blogflail article on the same topic

Second, once you decide which route to take, WordPress will help you setup the document root path. This article in WordPress codex describes that process:

The multisite installation process uses different terminology. A sub-domain install creates a domain-based network, even though you might use separate domains, and not subdomains, for your sites. A sub-directory install creates a path-based network, even though it does not use file system directories. If you want to use a sub-domain install, you must install WordPress in the root of your webpath (i.e. domain.com) however it does not need to be installed in the root (i.e. /public_html/) if you choose to run WordPress from it’s own directory.

After the multisite network installation is complete, WordPress uses the terminology domain and path for each site’s domain and path in the Network Admin user interface. A super admin (that is, a multisite network administrator) can edit sites’ domain and path settings, although it is unusual to do this to established sites because it changes their URLs.

The next section on that page also points you to plugins that will help with the administration of multisite, and would work on a localhost install as well.

Hope that helps point you in the right direction.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by 67tallchris.