WordPress Multisite: What is it?

A Word­Press Mul­ti­si­te allows you to run mul­ti­ple Word­Press web­sites in one Word­Press ins­tance. This is espe­ci­al­ly useful if the Word­Press web­sites have seve­ral pro­per­ties in com­mon.

In this artic­le, I’ll explain what a Word­Press Mul­ti­si­te is and what bene­fits it can bring you.

What is WordPress Multisite? #

A Word­Press Mul­ti­si­te pro­vi­des the abili­ty to add mul­ti­ple web­sites to a Word­Press instal­la­ti­on. Each Word­Press ins­tance can be con­ver­ted into a mul­ti­si­te. All you need to do is add a few lines of code. Your actu­al web­site remains acces­si­ble as usu­al, while new pages can be added easi­ly.

WordPress vs. WordPress Multisite

A simp­le Word­Press ins­tance dif­fers from a mul­ti­si­te in the fol­lo­wing ways:

• The num­ber of web pages that are mana­ged.
• With Word­Press Mul­ti­si­tes the­re is an addi­tio­nal user role for net­work admi­nis­tra­tors.
• Access to the­mes and plug­ins — only the net­work admi­nis­tra­tor can install plug­ins and the­mes. Plug­ins and the­mes can then be enab­led for indi­vi­du­al pages or glo­bal­ly.
• The way media is saved. Uploads are saved for the spe­ci­fic net­work page, so they can­not be used for other pages on the net­work.
• Mul­ti­si­tes crea­te addi­tio­nal data­ba­ses, e.g. for Posts, Opti­ons etc.. Howe­ver, some tables are used glo­bal­ly, e.g. Users. In addi­ti­on, other tables are added for Sites and Blogs, which are used to mana­ge the net­work sites.
• New net­work admi­nis­tra­ti­on dash­board for mul­ti­si­tes. This is used to mana­ge the net­work.

WordPress Multisite and Domain Names

Once you crea­te a Word­Press Mul­ti­si­te, you can choo­se how you want the pages on your net­work to be acces­si­ble. The­re are three opti­ons available to you:

• Sub­do­main (seite1.meinewebseite.jetzt)
• Sub­di­rec­to­ry (www.meinewebseite.jetzt/seite1)
• Top-Level-Domain (*.de, *.com, *.fr)

Der Vor­teil dabei ist, daThe advan­ta­ge of this is that visi­tors do not rea­li­ze at first glan­ce that it is a mul­ti­si­te — the page still looks like an ordi­na­ry web­site.

Advantages of WordPress Multisites #

Mul­ti­si­tes are always an advan­ta­ge if you run seve­ral web­sites that have the same plug­ins, the­mes or func­tions. Espe­ci­al­ly for com­pa­nies that have dif­fe­rent sites, a mul­ti­si­te can help save time and resour­ces by hel­ping defi­ne struc­tures (bran­ding) to ensu­re a con­sis­tent image. Nevert­hel­ess, a mul­ti­si­te offers the pos­si­bi­li­ty to meet indi­vi­du­al wis­hes and to give each site an indi­vi­du­al touch.

Mul­ti­si­tes can be some­thing for you if the fol­lo­wing points app­ly:

• The same the­me is used for mul­ti­ple pages
• Plug­ins are used on mul­ti­ple pages (opt-in, caching, per­for­mance, secu­ri­ty…)
• Com­mon ele­ments for dif­fe­rent pages (bran­ding, CD)

Multiple websites in one system

A Word­Press Mul­ti­si­te allows you to set up mul­ti­ple web­sites in one Word­Press ins­tance. One log­in for all sites allows you to quick­ly and easi­ly switch bet­ween the dif­fe­rent sites, crea­te con­tent and chan­ge menus. Pro­vi­ded you are a net­work admi­nis­tra­tor.

More efficient code

Run­ning mul­ti­ple web­sites in a mul­ti­si­te means less code. Tha­t’s becau­se regard­less of how many pages they are enab­led on, the­re is only one copy of each plug­in, the­me, and core files.

This means that less sto­rage space is requi­red than if a sepa­ra­te Word­Press ins­tance is set up for each page.

Regard­less of this, indi­vi­du­al cus­to­miza­ti­ons will also be available for all pages on which the the­me / plug­in has been acti­va­ted. This sim­pli­fies the main­ten­an­ce and fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of the indi­vi­du­al web­sites.

More efficient WordPress development

If you work with mul­ti­si­tes, you should crea­te an indi­vi­du­al child the­me for each of your net­work sites. This allows you to set the basic struc­tu­re of each page in the base the­me. Design ele­ments and basic struc­tures are then available to the other pages.

By crea­ting the child the­me, each net­work site reta­ins the abili­ty to make indi­vi­du­al adjus­t­ments and cus­to­mi­ze the appearance up to a cer­tain point.

For exam­p­le, you can defi­ne colors, logo and fonts glo­bal­ly for all pages. You can also defi­ne the struc­tu­re of indi­vi­du­al pages through Word­Press tem­pla­tes.

Using mul­ti­si­tes also allows you to access con­tent from other net­work sites to out­put it to ano­ther site. This way you can crea­te more than just a coll­ec­tion of indi­vi­du­al web pages.

Easier maintenance and update

With a Word­Press Mul­ti­si­tes plug­ins and the­mes can be acti­va­ted, deac­ti­va­ted, updated and dele­ted cen­tral­ly via the net­work admi­nis­tra­ti­on. This saves time when mana­ging the indi­vi­du­al sites.

In addi­ti­on, all plug­ins can be acti­va­ted glo­bal­ly, so that they are acti­ve for every page. But indi­vi­du­al acti­va­ti­on for indi­vi­du­al pages in the net­work is also pos­si­ble at any time. This helps to redu­ce the loa­ding times and memo­ry usa­ge of the indi­vi­du­al pages.

Useful plug­ins like Word­Press Mul­ti­si­te Con­tent Copier/Update pro­vi­de addi­tio­nal opti­ons like copy­ing indi­vi­du­al posts, pages, terms and media bet­ween net­work sites.

Only one backup for all sites

Ins­tead of crea­ting indi­vi­du­al back­ups for each of your web­sites, you can crea­te a sin­gle back­up for your enti­re net­work. This also allows you to res­to­re all your sites at once.

Better rights management

A mul­ti­si­te also adds a new role, the net­work admi­nis­tra­tor (super admi­nis­tra­tor). This per­son con­trols the hig­her-level fea­tures such as plug­ins, the­mes, and pages/blogs that are available on the net­work.

This allows indi­vi­du­al admi­nis­tra­tors to be defi­ned for the respec­ti­ve pages in the net­work wit­hout fear that chan­ges will also affect the other pages in the net­work.

It is the­r­e­fo­re pos­si­ble to assign indi­vi­du­al roles for indi­vi­du­al pages in the net­work.

Disadvantages of a WordPress Multisite #

A Word­Press mul­ti­si­te cer­tain­ly brings advan­ta­ges for various use cases, but it can also bring more dis­ad­van­ta­ges for one or the other pro­ject. For this reason, you should weigh up in advan­ce whe­ther the use of a mul­ti­si­te is pur­po­seful.

The fol­lo­wing points in par­ti­cu­lar should be noted:

Some plugins do not work for WordPress

Some plug­ins do not sup­port Word­Press mul­ti­si­tes, or are desi­gned to work only for sin­gle sites. This is not always obvious at first sight and can lead to tech­ni­cal pro­blems.

Howe­ver, for many of the­se plug­ins the­re are now equi­va­lent repla­ce­ments. With over 59,000 plug­ins, ever­yo­ne should be able to find one. So far, we have always been able to find a sui­ta­ble alter­na­ti­ve.

Restricted rights for administrators

With a Word­Press mul­ti­si­te, a new user role is also intro­du­ced, that of the net­work admi­nis­tra­tor. This out­sour­ces some rights that were pre­vious­ly available to admi­nis­tra­tors. This includes instal­ling and unin­stal­ling the­mes and plug­ins.

Plug­ins and the­mes can hence­forth only be instal­led and unin­stal­led by net­work admi­nis­tra­tors.

Hacker attacks and website downtimes network wide

Sin­ce the net­work, i.e. the mult­si­te, is based on a Word­Press ins­tance, a hacker attack usual­ly affects all pages within it. Down­ti­mes can occur, which also influence the ran­king in various search engi­nes.

A hacker attack always affects all sites in the net­work, sin­ce the core data is only available as a simp­le copy.

Data breaches affect all network sites

A secu­ri­ty gap or incor­rect file per­mis­si­ons can quick­ly beco­me a poten­ti­al attack sur­face for bots, which can also lead to data being lea­k­ed.

Com­pro­mi­sed data can be quick­ly cor­rec­ted with a (hop­eful­ly exis­ting) back­up. Nevert­hel­ess, cus­to­mers of all sites must be infor­med about the pos­si­bly sto­len per­so­nal data.

Usual­ly mana­geable for one site, but quick­ly an enorm­ous admi­nis­tra­ti­ve act for hundreds.

Slower loading times with increased traffic

Many pages in a net­work natu­ral­ly mean more traf­fic. The indi­vi­du­al pages in the net­work share the band­width. As a result, it can quick­ly hap­pen that one web­site slows down the loa­ding times of the other pages in the net­work.

Fur­ther mea­su­res may be neces­sa­ry, inclu­ding, for exam­p­le, advan­ced caching mea­su­res and load balan­cers.

Multisites are not supported by the hosting

Not every hos­ter sup­ports the use of Word­Press mul­ti­si­tes. The­r­e­fo­re, you should check in advan­ce whe­ther this is sup­port­ed, or sel­ect the right hos­ter in advan­ce.

Mean­while, many hos­ting pro­vi­ders also offer spe­cial Word­Press hos­ting. The­se often do not sup­port mul­ti­si­tes eit­her. You should the­r­e­fo­re pay atten­ti­on to whe­ther it is expli­cit­ly men­tio­ned that mul­ti­si­tes are sup­port­ed, if you plan to rea­li­ze your web­site via a Word­Press hos­ting.

The more network pages, the higher the resource consumption

Every web­site requi­res resour­ces. The­se include pro­ces­sor time and RAM. Both are usual­ly only available in limi­t­ed quan­ti­ties. In a mul­ti­si­te, of cour­se, the indi­vi­du­al pages also share the resour­ces.

The actu­al resour­ces nee­ded also depend on the num­ber of plug­ins used, the the­me and the PHP exten­si­ons instal­led. But trans­la­ti­ons can also nega­tively influence the sys­tem.

As a rule, more and more plug-ins are instal­led by addi­tio­nal net­work pages. The resour­ce requi­re­ments the­r­e­fo­re con­ti­nue to increase. It is the­r­e­fo­re advi­sa­ble to choo­se a net­work admi­nis­tra­tor who also pays atten­ti­on to the resour­ces and to always ques­ti­on whe­ther you real­ly need every plug­in.

Network pages share some tables

Alt­hough the pages are per­cei­ved as indi­vi­du­al web pages, they still share various tables. The­se include, for exam­p­le, the user tables.

A user can the­r­e­fo­re be crea­ted only once in the sys­tem. By default, it is not pos­si­ble to crea­te the same user again on ano­ther net­work site.

This can lead to con­fu­si­on and also pro­blems. The­r­e­fo­re, you should con­sider in advan­ce whe­ther this func­tion is nee­ded and if so, which plug­in will help sol­ve this pro­blem.

How to set up and activate WordPress Multisite #

You can acti­va­te a Word­Press Mul­ti­si­te for a new site or for an exis­ting Word­Press web­site.

Manually setting up a WordPress Multisite on a new WordPress installation

To enable mul­ti­si­te for your Word­Press web­site, you need SFTP/FTP access (How to use SFTP to access your Word­Press web­site). First, you need to modi­fy the con­fig file. Search in the wp-config.php for the fol­lo­wing line:

/* Das war’s, Schluss mit dem Bearbeiten! Viel Spaß. */
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */

Direct­ly abo­ve it, add the fol­lo­wing line:

define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );

Save the file and upload it to the ser­ver.

Now log in to your Word­Press web­site. In the Tools’ menu, you will find a new ent­ry for the net­work set­up.

A page will appear asking you if you want to set up your net­work with domains or sub­di­rec­to­ries. Sel­ect the desi­red opti­on and con­firm by cli­cking the Instal­la­ti­on but­ton.

Note: If you have set up your site in a sub­di­rec­to­ry, no sel­ec­tion is available here.

On the new page you will now see all the set­tings that you need to copy addi­tio­nal­ly in the wp-config.php and in the .htac­cess.

Open the two files and pas­te the code as shown for you.

Note: Your code will be dif­fe­rent from the one in our screen­shot.

Save the two files and upload them to your ser­ver. After that you have to log in to your Word­Press dash­board again. For this you use the alre­a­dy known cre­den­ti­als.

As you can see, your dash­board has chan­ged a bit. You’ll now find a new “My Web­sites” item in the top menu.

This menu takes you to the net­work admi­nis­tra­ti­on. From here you can crea­te new web­sites, mana­ge plug­ins, the­mes and users, as well as defi­ne the set­tings for the net­work.

Convert a WordPress website to a multisite

To con­vert a simp­le Word­Press instal­la­ti­on into a mul­ti­si­te, you sim­ply fol­low the same manu­al steps as abo­ve. The­re is only one dif­fe­rence: as soon as your web­site has alre­a­dy chan­ged to a new month (e.g. the web­site was crea­ted in June, in July you want to con­vert the site to a mul­ti­si­te), the opti­on to set up the mul­ti­si­te in sub­di­rec­to­ries will expi­re.

This is sim­ply becau­se of the way Word­Press crea­tes media and pages. Other­wi­se, the­re could be con­flicts. But you are still free to crea­te the mul­ti­si­te as sub­do­mains or to use indi­vi­du­al top-level domains.

Summary #

Word­Press mul­ti­si­tes can save you a lot of time and work in various use cases. As long as the net­work is mana­ged pro­per­ly, the dis­ad­van­ta­ges can be limi­t­ed.

Nevert­hel­ess, it should be deci­ded on a case-by-case basis whe­ther a mul­ti­si­te is advan­ta­ge­ous in the long term, becau­se a con­ver­si­on is asso­cia­ted with some effort. Also with regard to data pro­tec­tion, the­re is a lot to con­sider, espe­ci­al­ly with the DSGVO.

We can also advi­se you indi­vi­du­al­ly and show you the best solu­ti­on. Plea­se cont­act us for a free initi­al con­sul­ta­ti­on.