July 19, 2022

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WordPress Multisite – Meaning, Features, Pros and Cons

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WordPress is one of the most popular and well-known web platforms, dominating a third of websites worldwide. The depth of functionality and flexibility goes beyond the free blogs you can get with the famous five-minute installation. One such feature is WordPress Multisite. WordPress Multisite turns your single site into a web where you can create and manage multiple pages that want to display multiple tags or meet the needs of different users. If your site has a lot of blog themes, you should carefully consider creating your WordPress site for multiple sites. You can turn to a new website or website that you are following for a while. The only requirement to update WordPress Multisite is that WordPress is added to your website after buying a shared hosting plan for the same. WordPress Multisite includes WordPress Core but does not work immediately.  But this isn’t all. There is much more to it. Let us look at it in detail through this article, shall we? 

What is WordPress multisite really?

WordPress Multisite is a popular WordPress feature allowing you to build and run many websites using the same WordPress installation on your server. Essentially this means that you can manage many different WordPress sites from a single dashboard.

Features of WordPress Multisite

1. Complete control over the entire network

WordPress Multisite allows you to manage the entire network as an administrator. As a regular webmaster, you can only manage one site per network. As a great admin, you manage access for users who want to create an account and configure their WordPress blogs or sites. 

2. Installation of new themes and plugins

Admins can install new themes and plugins, make them available on network sites, and also edit themes for all sites. Another benefit is the ability to create websites and online stores that target specific languages, regions, and currencies.

3. Total control over content

Administrators and webmasters can control the content. Because these controls apply to network-wide super administrators, webmasters have the right to choose what content for the primary domain appears on that site. Plugins are also under super-administrative control. However, webmasters can enable and disable plug-ins on their sites as needed.

Pros and cons of a WordPress Multisite

Many of the benefits are covered in the features part of WordPress multisite. But apart from them, there are quite a few other benefits of using the same and cons as well. Here they are:

Pros- 

Each page can have its own theme or multiple pages can have the same theme. When a theme is updated, all the pages with that theme are automatically updated at the same time. You can also activate the plugin only for sites that need it. This is very useful for avoiding plugin conflicts. The plugin’s enable and disable feature is also useful in other ways; Since it can only activate the add-ons that the site needs, it reduces the time it takes to troubleshoot if one of the plugins is causing a problem. Once you have the pages set up on your multisite, you can easily add new ones if you want. Having all the sites on the web can reduce the workload of hosting a new site. You have all the server configuration, deployment process, email delivery configuration, and security plugins. As a network administrator, you have access to a centralized user account management system, which allows you to configure individual administrators and users for each site. You can generate credentials for users who need access to multiple websites, such as individual pages.

Cons- 

Because all sites are online, when one site disappears, all sites disappear. You can configure the monitoring service to monitor web traffic and other errors to ensure minimal downtime. For example, if a website is compromised, everyone will be compromised. Ways to increase security include setting up two-factor authentication for users and restricting user assignments or access. The network administrator has access to all the pages, but each page has its own administrator role, and that role only has access to the administrator settings for that particular page. You can also create custom roles, e.g. For example, an editor where users can only create, edit, and publish content, but cannot edit plugins or site settings.

Final take away

WordPress Multisite has been around since 2010, so it’s widely supported. However, you may want to make sure that your hosting provider supports hosting multiple websites with most of the major WordPress providers. You also want to make sure that any plugins used on your website are compatible with multiple websites. If you don’t have a particular plugin, you might want to see if there are similar compatible plugins, or rate them.  Here is hoping you have understood what WordPress multisite is, what its features are and how can it be of benefit to you in each circumstance. If you still think you need more information or have questions around it, please share your comments in the section below.

Rahul Sharma

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