Wordpress Multisites: All You Need to Know

Giving every web developer and designer a considerable cause for pause, Wordpress has steamrolled its way to become a pantheon of content management systems.

Seeked by all and sundry, Wordpress boasts of some astonishing statistics. To begin with, an approx 75 million websites are in some way or the other relying on Wordpress to deliver the goods. Another staggering statistical piece is that more than twenty percent of the new US registered domains are eventually run on Wordpress.

It is evidently clear that an overwhelming majority of webmasters are choosing WordPress web development for setting up their websites. However, despite being them so apparently leaned towards this CMS, the concept of multisite still remains pretty much unfamiliar to most.

Why Multisite Deserves to be Known

While not every website needs a multisite structure, there is a truckload of them that would benefit immensely by integrating this functionality. A multisite features adds more versatility and extensibility to your website. Using this feature, you can run multiple website using just a single backend, and this allows you to create large windows of content and information right from a single source. Anytime you feel that you need a website that is radically different from your current one, you do not have to buy a different domain name and create the new website right from the scratch.

One of the most popular features of multisites in Wordpress is that when you install a plugin in one site, they can be installed in all the other websites automatically. Or, you can select which websites you don't want it to be installed on. Also, you can put constraints on the plugin in regards to who should access it and who shouldn't.

Have you Seen a Wordpress Multisite?

Of course you have. Wordpress.com is singularly the most amazing example of a Wordpress multisite. On wordpress.com, you can have your own mini sites of the likes of john.wordpress.com, linda.wordpress.com, xyz.wordpress.com and so on.

So, you basically are hosting your website on Wordpress.com and in order to give your site an identity that is chosen by you, Wordpress lets you append the names of your choice before the main URL. Wordpress has the ultimate authority on your site here. While you can change your site's theme as many times as you want and move around some widgets, it is Wordpress that ultimately decided the customization level. You cannot post ads from networks like adsense. Any ads you see there on your website are earning revenue for Wordpress. For the folks who don't have monetary interests through their blog, at least not through the ads, can seamlessly create their blog on Wordpress and write out their opinions and thoughts.

Besides that, you can also have a blog that is an online representation of your business, even though it is recommended that you instead opt for wordpress.org in this case.

What Else Does it Have for You?

Since we already touched upon the fact that you can have a blog on Wordpress.com by appending your own name, we give you some more options in terms of the structures you can have on other multisites. Let's say, you have a blog that you want to name yourblog. This is how it can look on the multisite networks:

• Yourblog.xyz.com
• xyz.com/yourblog

Now, as an admin of a website that has a multisite feature, there are a whole lot of things you can do with it, mostly because you have a lot of time with you.

Instead of having a linear website with a number of authors for which you have to maintain their posts yourself, you can instead have a multisite that is hosted after their preferred names and allow them to inker around with their own site themselves, without putting your website's security and other settings in jeopardy. The users can install their own set of tools on their sub-site based on how much freedom you give to them. Any amount of traffic that their sub-site draws is counted as the traffic to your website, and that alone is worth the price of admission.

The biggest incentive of a signing up with a multisite for the authors is that unline signing up as an author on a regular website, they have their own name on the sub domain. This way, they are not relying on the author boxes below their post to market themselves as writers or contributors to your website. In a way, they are running their own website which they will be more comfortable promoting in their circle. And this also means that you will draw more such people who would want to contribute to your website, thus in turn, increasing content on your website and further improving your search engine rankings as well.

Having a multisite on your Wordpress website can create an unequalled impact on your prospects. Weight your options.