What is WordPress Multisite?
A WordPress Multisite allows easier control of multiple sites and quick access to already installed themes and plugins. This ability to quickly edit themes and change multiple websites can be both a disadvantage and advantage depending on the websites you have under control. Another great feature is sharing plugins across multiple sites. With few being unable to do multisite format. With this in mind if something causes your WordPress to act up it has a high potential to effect all your sites. With the standard one install for one website allowing this to only limit one site at a time. Bandwidth also is increased with multiple sites which will increase the price of your hosting. SEO is also important to keep in mind, each site is considered their own so SEO and search engines aren’t effected.
How do you set up WordPress Multisite?
With each environment being different, the way through cPanel is as simple as clicking multisite install when going through the install process and then simply following the prompts given.
What are the key features and functionalities of WordPress Multisite?
The key features include one login for accessing all the sites, global user control, having and creating multiple sites, and globally available plugins and themes across all sites. The main feature to focus on is having multiple sites making it quick and easy to access all the sites.
There are multiple ways to setup multisite WP installs. With users having higher level permission and sites being created there will be a point where you need access to a site and the only person who can give permission to edit will the the creator of the site.
Users are a big topic any user of one site is also a user of the others, however their permission have to be set for each site so if you have editing rights on one you don’t necessarily have permission to do the same to others under the same WP install.
With globally available plugins across all the sites that also means quickly editing one sites plugin will effect others sharing the same plugin. This can be a great advantage with sites that share a common setup, but when they don’t this can cause unintended changes.
What are the challenges and considerations for managing a WordPress Multisite network?
When a site is having a problem there is a high chance it’ll effect all the sites hosted under that WP install. There is also the issue that comes with using the same theme or plugin in across multiple sites and changing it. This can cause all the sites to take the effect of that change. You also have to consider that users of one site become users of the others. This can be problematic or a nice feature depending on the sites you control. Managing users is important when working with other developers or creators. With the ability to give permissions to one site but not all is a great feature when managing users.