How many WordPress websites do you have?
Two?
Three?
Ten?
If you have more than a couple of sites running on WordPress, you’ll benefit from using Multisite.
WordPress Multisite is a tool that allows you to manage multiple websites from a single dashboard.
This way, you can eliminate the number of times you need to log into your individual websites just to make changes.
As a result, you only need to remember one username and password for all of the websites you connect to Multisite.
The main benefit Multisite offers is convenience and ease when editing multiple WordPress websites.
Multisite launched when there weren’t many options for managing multiple websites other than logging into each separate site.
Even if you don’t mind logging into your individual WordPress installations, Multisite has several features that you’ll find useful.
WordPress.com is the most well-known example of a website running Multisite. However, it’s also used by universities to tie multiple blogs together and real estate companies use Multisite to provide blogs to their real estate agents.
Multisite is ideal for anyone who needs to run and manage multiple WordPress blogs.
Multisite is already a built-in WordPress feature, but you won’t see it until you add a line of code to your configuration file for your main WordPress installation.
First, choose the main website you want to use to set up Multisite. It doesn’t really matter which site you choose since all of your sites will soon be connected.
Find your wp-config file and add the following code on the line directly before ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’
2
define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);
Once you add this code, save your file and log into your WordPress installation and go to:
Tools > Network Setup
You will be taken through the setup process, which is outlined in detail on WPBeginner.com
Depending on how many blogs you’re going to run and the content of those blogs, you’ll need to carefully consider hosting options for your WordPress Multisite network. If you’re just running some hobby blogs, shared hosting is probably perfectly acceptable. However, if you’re running high-traffic blogs, own websites, or ecommerce stores, you’ll want to look into dedicated servers and possibly cloud hosting.
If you only have a few websites, you should be okay using a shared hosting account. Chances are, you won’t need the extensive specs that come with a dedicated server or cloud hosting account. With a shared hosting account, your Multisite network share will be hosted alongside other users’ accounts.
This means all of the server’s resources are shared, which works well as long as each website in your WordPress Multisite installation places only a light load on the server. However, be aware that hosting providers offering “unlimited” disk space and bandwidth often have hidden limits. It’s unlimited as long as you don’t use more than your fair share.
If a site on your entire Multisite network uses too many resources, it could cause other sites to go down, leading to potential termination of your shared hosting account. For critical websites or ecommerce stores, shared hosting isn’t worth the risk. Instead, consider one of these three options: dedicated, managed, or cloud hosting.
When you’re going to use Multisite for a large number of WordPress websites, you’re better off with dedicated or managed hosting. This provides more resources, customized specs, and ensures your own sites won’t crash due to resource overuse from other users.
Dedicated hosting is cheaper than managed hosting, but you’ll need to maintain your dedicated server. If you aren’t comfortable as a network admin, you’ll need to hire someone to handle server management for your Multisite dashboard. On the other hand, managed hosting provides a dedicated server, and the hosting provider will manage it for you. This is the ideal solution for a large WordPress Multisite network.
If you plan on building out WordPress websites for ecommerce, cloud hosting is the best option. With cloud hosting, you can scale resources on-demand for your WordPress Multisite installation, avoiding the need to pay for all potential resources upfront.
Cloud hosting ensures that your same WordPress installation can handle the influx of traffic during holiday sales or flash sales without your single WordPress dashboard going down. Additionally, you can leverage a domain mapping plugin to assign custom domains to different sites in your network, streamlining the management process through the WordPress dashboard. Cloud hosting is perfect for ecommerce stores or any site that experiences fluctuating traffic, as it bills you only for the additional resources used during peak times.
Are you overwhelmed just thinking about installing Multisite and connecting all of your blogs? Contact us and we’ll set you up with a seamless installation that integrates all the blogs in your WordPress network. We’ll also double down on security to make sure your WordPress network is secure.
At Dev.co , we work hard to make sure our clients get exactly what they need, whether it’s a brand-new website, edits to an existing site, a full ecommerce buildout, or a Multisite installation.
Reach out to us today and tell us about your project. We’d love to work with you!
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