WordPress Multisite

How the Multisite Admin Screens Are Different

When you activate Multisite, some extra screens will be added to your admin, for managing the network. You can see below the there’s a special dashboard for managing the network.

These are accessible only to the Super Admin who manages the network (that’s you) and will let you install themes and plugins and create and manage sites. I’ll take you through these in more detail later in this post.

The admin screens that each site admin can access are similar to a standard WordPress site, but a couple are missing: site admins can’t install themes or plugins but can only activate those that have been installed on the network.

But apart from that, the screens will be very familiar to anyone who has used WordPress.

How the Multisite Files Are Different

There are just two differences to the files and folders in a Multisite network: the wp-config.php file and the wp-uploads folder.

The wp-config.php file will have some extra lines added which activate Multisite and tell WordPress how it’s running. The wp-uploads folder will contain a subfolder for each site on the network, with the site’s numerical ID as its name. Files uploaded to each site are stored in that site’s folder, in the same structure as you would normally expect to see them in the wp-uploads folder in a standard WordPress installation.

But the good news is that WordPress manages the file structure for you, so you don’t need to worry about it!

How the Database is Different with Multisite

The final difference is one you really don’t have to worry about unless you’re into that sort of thing: the database tables. The database for a standard WordPress installation will have 11 database tables for storing your site’s content and settings. With a Multisite network, nine of these are duplicated for each site, meaning that if you’ve got a lot of sites, you’ll have a lot of tables. This keeps the content for each site separate.

Again this is something that goes on behind the scenes and which you should never need to worry about.

Uses for Multisite

Multisite has a lot of applications, but I like to think of them as coming under three categories:

• A privately run network of sites or blogs for an individual or business
• A network of client sites installed and administered by a developer or agency
• A network which people can add their own sites to, either for free or by paying a subscription.

I have my own network of personal sites on my blog. I use this to create sites to demonstrate techniques I write about in my books and tutorials, and to try out new ideas. You might want to create a network to host your own personal sites if you have more than one, and with domain mapping plugins you can even use a different domain name for each site.