1. WORDPRESS
MULTISITE
Southern California WordPress Meetup, Feb
26th, 2013
Belsien Thomas, @belsien
http://wppowerguide.com

2. WHO AM I?
 I’m Belsien Thomas (@belsien), building websites with
PHP, JAVA, and various programming languages for over 12+ years.
Worked with WordPresss since 2006 (version 2.0).
 Built and Managed a Multisite (5 sites) install for Murad
(http://muradinclusivehealth.com ). Utilized Global
Navigation, Multiple Access Roles, Caching/Performance
Tuning, and other enterprise features.
 Run a WordPress blog http://wppowerguide.com has guides and tips
on how to utilize WordPress as a CMS in powerful ways, other than
just a blog.

3. TOPICS COVERED
Multisite Overview and Background
Advantages/Disadvantages
Setup and Configuration
User Roles and Backend Options
Network Themes and Plugins
Recommended Plugins
Uses & Examples of Mutlisite

4. OVERVIEW & BACKGROUND
Multisite (MS) allows you to create
multiple WordPress websites (aka a
“Network”) with a single installation of
WordPress.
Previously called WordPress Multi User
(WPMU) but renamed to just
Multisite, comes with WordPress core
since version 3.0.

5. ADVANTAGES
Create an unlimited number of websites with
just 1 installation on your server.
Share themes, plugins, and user information
across all websites in your network.
Easy to Upgrade everything across network at
once.
Flexible, can be setup to run as
Subdomains, Sub folders, or mapped to
separate domains.

6. DISADVANTAGES
Database is even more critical, corruption can
bring down all sites in network. (Keep
backups!)
Some Added Steps and Screens to enable
plugins and themes.
Not every plugin works well in MS
environment.
Can take more time and effort to
troubleshoot, much less articles written online
about MS.

7. 2 TYPES OF MULTISITE
NETWORKS
Sub Domain Based Sub Folder Based
• mysite.com • mysite.com
• mario.mysite.com • mysite.com/mario
• stage.mysite.com • mysite.com/stage

8. DOMAIN MAPPING (PLUGIN)
 Allows you to map a top level domain to either a subdomain or
subfolder.
mariosite.co • Mapped • Mapped
luigisite.com to
m to
mario.mysite.co mysite.com/l
m uigi

9. DECIDE WHICH TYPE OF NETWORK IS
RIGHT FOR YOU
 Can not change the type of network once you choose
subdomain or subfolder.
 Highly Recommended reading.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Before_You_Create_A_Network
http://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network

10. SETUP AND CONFIGURATION
3. Copy/paste
1. Allow 2. Choose and your custom
4. Logout and
Networks in Create a directives to
Login!
wp-config.php network type wp-config.php
and .htaccess
*Previous Versions of WordPress required
creating a blogs.dir directory under wp-
content, but now not needed.

11. 1. ALLOW
MULTISITE
NETWORKS
 Add following to wp-config.php
define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

12. 2. SETUP A NETWORK
 Tools > Network Setup

13. 2. SETUP A NETWORK (CONTINUED)
Chose either Sub-domains or Sub-directories. CAN’T be changed later.
For sub-domains you need to have a Wildcard (*) entry in your DNS records.
*.yoursite.com

14. 3. COPY/PASTE CONFIGURATION
CODE TO WP-CONFIG.PHP AND
.HTACCESS

15. 4. LOGOUT/LOGIN – GET NETWORK ADMIN.

16. NETWORK ADMIN & OPTIONS
 Network Admin
 Manage/Create new Websites, Themes, Plugins, and Users

17. NETWORK SETTINGS – IMPORTANT
AREA
User Registration, New Site
Settings, Welcome Emails, and
Notifications
Max Upload File Limit – Database
setting, trumps your php.ini file!
Enable/Disable Plugins menu for
Site Admins

18. NEW ROLE – SUPER ADMIN!
Super Admins can:
Super • Manage Network Settings &
Admin Options
Site • Manage Sites
Admin • Manage Network Users
• Manage Network
Editor Theme, Plugins, &
• …..basically anything in your
Author site.
Contributor
Subscriber

19. HOW THEMES WORK IN MULTISITE
• Themes are not available to websites in your network until you
“Network Enable” them.
• By default, site Admins can’t install themes only the Super Admin can.

20. HOW PLUGINS WORK IN MULTISITE
Plugins can be installed and Activated across all sites in your
Network
OR
Selectively activated per website.

21. HOW PLUGINS WORK IN
MULTISITE
• By Default Plugins are hidden from Site Admin’s.
• To Enable Plugins go to Network Settings in the
Network Admin area, check off Plugins under “Enable
Administration Menus”

22. RECOMMENDED PLUGINS
Domain Mapping
•Map a top-level
domain
(example.com) to any
site in your network
•Allow site admins
control over mapped
domains

23. RECOMMENDED PLUGINS
New Blogs Defaults
•Set defaults used for all
new sites created in your
network
•Can delete default
content like Hello World
post, comment, etc.
•Can auto-add users to all
new sites created by ID

24. RECOMMENDED PLUGINS
WPMU – New Blog Templates
 The default template for all
new sites created on your
network.
 A template selection when
people sign up for a new site
on your network.
 A template selection when a
super admin user creates a
new site in Sites > Add New
in the network admin
dashboard.

25. RECOMMENDED PLUGINS
Gravity Forms +
User Reg Add-On
 Allows Users to Create a
new Site in your Network
through a registration
form.

26. MULTISITE EXAMPLES –
WORDPRESS.COMBlogs
Run by Automatic, over 400,000
Cloud Based – multiple DB’s

27. BLOGS @ BARUCH
Online LMS – Teachers and Students have their own blogs
Integrated with BuddyPress – Members section

28. DISCOVER-WP.COM
Users can create their own free 30-day site using tools provided by
OnTheGoSystems
Uses Blog Templates during registration to let user choose which site they
want.

29. MURADINCLUSIVEHEALTH.COM
Global Navigation and Branding across all 5 sites – easily expandable
Network type is PATH based (sub folders)