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An unusual domain/subdomain setup for multisite?

I’d like to ask a strange question re multisite please.

Are the following domain names and/or setups possible on a multisite setup (using sub directories, not subdomains)? Essentially we want three sites for the domain City01.com and three sites for the domain City02.com but can’t figure out how to do the last two on the list below (it may not be possible).

Main Site = city01.com
Subsites wanted:
City01.com = main site
City01.com/realestate = city01.com/realestate
City01.com/events = city01.com/events
City02.com = city01.com/city02
City02.com/realestate = ??? (city01.com/city02realestate)
City02.com/events = ??? (city01.com/city02events)

We don’t believe subdomains are the answer here because we want the search engines to think of it as 2 or 3 sites. Example:

City01.com
City01.com/realestate
City01.com/events
= one domain in search engines

City01.com
realestate.City01.com
events.City01.com
= three separate domains in search engines

Thanks for any help you have ahead of time.

Sun, 4 Apr 2021 0:39:45
  • Cat
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Pardon me, I wrote that last part incorrectly – we DON’T the search engines to think of them as 2-3 separate sites.

    We want the engines to acknowledge the 2 main sites only = City01.com and City02.com

  • Chris
    • Flash Drive

    I’m a little confused, can you clarify? You do or do not want two completely different sites in your multi site installation?

    From what you’ve posted here it seems like what you want is one single site in WordPress and then a few different CNAME records redirecting traffic to sub sites inside that single WordPress instance. Is that right?

    • Cat
      • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

      Correct. Sorry, still new to multisite.

      Basically what we have right now is one server for City01.com and another server for City02.com

      We want to put both of these on the same multisite installation – we would use the Native Domain Mapping to point City02.com to the subsite City01.com/city02

      Then we want to be able to also make separate sites for each of /realestate and /events for each domain. I was going to configure them as follows, but I don’t think it will work.

      City01.com = main site
      City01.com/realestate = city01.com/realestate
      City01.com/events = city01.com/events
      City02.com = city01.com/city02
      City02.com/realestate = ??? (city01.com/city02realestate)
      City02.com/events = ??? (city01.com/city02events)

  • Kris Tomczyk
    • Ex Staff

    Hi Cat

    If I understand this correctly I will not make any DNS and redirects more complex here. What I can suggest and what I will do in this case will be to simplify multisite as much this is possible and modify the menu and possible design for each domain using plugins. Here is how I see it.

    Basic domains settings:
    1. Set up your subdirectory multisite
    2. City01.com will be the main site
    3. Create subsite City01.com/City02
    4. Map domain City02.com in City01.com/City02

    =============

    Additional realestate/events sites:
    As I understand those should be separate sites, but they should be visible in search engines as one domain.

    1. On the main site City01.com create pages realestate & events
    this will result with
    City01.com/realestate
    City01.com/events

    2. Create additional pages using page attributes as parent for each of those pages. Example:
    City01.com/realestate/home (home is the parent of realestate)
    City01.com/realestate/aboutus (aboutus is the parent of realestate)
    City01.com/realestate/contact (contact is parent of realestate)
    City01.com/events/home (home is the parent of events)
    City01.com/events/aboutus (aboutus is the parent of events)
    City01.com/events/contact (contact is the parent of events)

    Please check below screenshot:
    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

    2a. Repeat structure from the screenshot for events as well
    2b. Repeat structure from the screenshot for realestate & events as well in subsite City01.com/City02

    At this point:
    1. each domain use pages as structure
    2. each domain can use a different theme and menu
    So far so good.

    =============

    Additional realestate/events themes and menus:
    Right now we have the correct structure. The main issue here is that (possibly) you would like to have
    City01.com/realestate/ (own menu and different theme)
    City01.com/events/ (own menu and different theme)
    City02.com/realestate/ (own menu and different theme)
    City02.com/events/ (own menu and different theme)

    Here those two plugins appear which can help:
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/conditional-menus/
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/jonradio-multiple-themes/

    I hope this helps.

    Kind Regards,
    Kris

  • Cat
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Thank you so much Kris for your help – I appreciate your thinking here and the time it took to write me. It’s a good solution.

    But I don’t think I can use pages to structure what we need here though. I really need the ability to control who can get access to what department on the site. And I also need a separate database for realestate data, etc.

    I’d like to come at it one more time from another angle. It goes something like this:

    We have two main sites: City01.com and City02.com. They are essentially the same, just for different cities.

    If we think of one site only (eg. City01.com), then this is easy. I would start up a multisite (subdirectory) for City01.com, then start up two subsites (/events and /realestate). Neither /events or /realestate need to have Contact or AboutUs pages because they are part of City01.com and the viewer would just see one big website (and search engines too). The difference is, on the back end, I can limit the access for our staff – eg. only people in the real estate department would get access to City01.com/realestate (and the real estate housing data in this database). Same for City01.com/events. Multisite is perfect for this.

    Now, here’s the catch, I want to do the exact same thing for City02.com, complete with the two subsites (/events and /realestate) – and, if possible, put it on the same multisite installation as City01.com

    You’re probably wondering why I wouldn’t just start up two multisite installations, one for City01 and one for City02 – but we have some proprietary code we have written that ‘sort of’ works better if all the sites are on the same multisite installation.

    Thank you again for your thoughts.

  • Nebu John
    • FLS

    Hi Cat ,

    I really need the ability to control who can get access to what department on the site.

    This should be possible using the user Roles and Capabilities in WordPress. Please check the following articles, I hope that helps.

    1) https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/wordpress-user-roles-and-permissions/
    2) https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-restrict-wordpress-pages-by-user-role/

    I hope that helps, feel free to get back to us if you need any further clarification.

    Kind Regards,
    Nebu John