But right now is Sabrina Zeidan
Sabrina Zeidan has been a Wordpress lover since 2010.
When she installed WordPress for the advertising agency
she was working at
And it was love at first sight.
Since that time there was a long way
through design, SEO, marketing career
to what she is really excited with —
WordPress Multisite development
Sabrina specializes in helping web dev teams
implement WP Multisite
and get the most out of its functionality
Some of her experience is shared on
her blog sabrinazeidan.com
So she is here today to speak about
complex projects made easy with
WordPress Multisite
A big round of applause for Sabrina Zeidan
Hi
One hundred and seventeen million websites
are running right now
on the single instance of WordPress
Imagine our regular Dashboard
but having this number of websites inside it
that you can reach with just one click
This is the actual numbers
of the website that we all know — WordPress.com
It has 117 880 739 websites in this network
136 628 430 users in it
and over 1 billion visits per month
And the thing that makes it possible
is called WordPress Multisite
And today I want to share with you
some awesome things
that this system makes possible
You already know that my name is Sabrina Zeidan
I'm WordPress Multisite Consultant
I help development teams to build
networks of websites
using WordPress Multisite functionality
Today we’ll see
what is WordPress Multisite
why you would like to build
your next complex project using this system
and we’ll see real life examples of it’s efficient usage
So, a quick introduction
What is WordPress Multisite?
It is the ability to create a network of websites
running on the single instance of WordPress
Basically, you’ve got a bunch of sites
that are using the same codebase and database,
the same WordPress install
And you have the one command center for it
You can have 3, 10, maybe million of websites
in one install of WordPress
How big the number might grow?
This is exactly the first reason...
Ah! I'm sorry
I would like to show you
how the system may look like
It may have subdirectory structure
So you have yoursite.com/subsite1
yoursite.com/subsite2
yoursite.com/subsite3
It may have subdomain structure
So you have subsite1.site.com
subsite2.site.com
subsite3.site.com and so on
But the most coolest thing is that
you can even use Top Level Domain names
for your Multisite network
So you have site1.com
Completely different site2.com
Quite another site3.com
That may look like they are not related at all
But they still are using
the same instance of WordPress
They are still in your WordPress Multisite network
In all these cases WordPress Multisite network
works the same
It's the place where the things are toasted
and from where you can rule
the whole bunch of sites
So, how many sites you can rule in your
WordPress Multisite network?
And this is exactly the first reason
to love WordPress Multisite
The Scalability
to infinity and beyond
There is no limit
for the number of websites from software side
You've already seen the impressive numbers
of the largest WordPress Multisite network
WordPress.com
They have 117 million websites in their install
Another great example is edublogs.org
They have got 3 millions of websites
My own personal best for now
is 116 websites in the one WordPress install
But the opposite side of such great opportunities
is responsibility
Because when something goes wrong
it goes wrong in the whole network
And your all sites go down
And this is why we have SuperAdmin role
in our WordPress Multisite network
This is the second reason
to love WordPress Multisite
While each site in the network
may have its own admin, editors, subscribers
or any other custom user roles
like in our regular WordPress install
There is an extra role for Super Administrator
to rule over the whole network
He has unlimited access
and all capabilities across the network
He can easily access any site in the network
from the Network Dashboard
instead of login into each site individually
He has to take care about
just one single database
(make backups and everything)
and about one and codebase:
update WordPress core just once
for the whole network,
update plugins and themes just once
and install them
He has the ability to install plugins
and activate them across the whole network
or for the some specific website
So, the SuperAdmin role gives you
full control over the WordPress Multisite network
And the local Administrator of the each subsite
has his regular capabilities
as in regular WordPress instance
The organization system is very simple and logical
The local administrator can do
whatever he wants on his site
but inside the boundaries set by SuperAdmin
And this is the third reason
to love WordPress Multisite
The federated structure
While every site in WordPress Multisite network
exists completely independently
(it may have it's own plugins activated,
may have it's own theme,
content, posts, users, media, everything)
but the choice of plugins and themes
is predefined by SuperAdmin only
Only SuperAdmin has the capability
to install plugins
but the local Administrator can activate it
on his website or not
The same for the themes
The SuperAdmin only can install themes
but you as an Administrator of local website
can decide whether you activate the theme
on your website or no
This federation like kind of structure
is the heart and soul of WordPress Multisite
It makes possible for SuperAdmin to
keep everything under the control
but still gives the vast opportunities
for the customization of each subsite
independently
And makes the system very flexible
The most simple example:
you can set the default language for the whole network
but you still can set another default language
for the specific subsite
The same is with the plugins, themes and everything
The opportunity to make aggregated content is
the reason to love WordPress Multisite #4
You can have the news from the site A
displayed on the site B
You can have some top products from the site B
displayed on the site C
You can have network navigation menus
You can have maybe tags from
all over the network combined together
and displayed on the main site
Basically, you can get any information
from any website
in any place of your WordPress Multisite network
And it's very handy
when your sites are not separated
like on WordPress.com
but you have a network of the related sites
I'll show you an example later
how it might be implemented
And now
the 5th reason to love WordPress Multisite
Is the IKEA kitchen principle
You can easily add new websites to the network
even not completely new from the scratch
but already existing ones
And when you need you can move it out
to the single instance of WordPress
It's very useful when you have
a business network
and you are selling one of the websites
You can just move it out to the single instance
and say bye-bye to it
and there is no problem
I promised five but there is the sixth
extra reason to love WordPress Multisite
We can create a network of sites, right?
But we can go even further
and create Network of Networks
It will get a complicated hierarchy
complicated structure
but it will have the same easy system
for management and maintenance
And it's very cool when you have really
complex and big projects
Now you are thinking something like
Okay, right, But how can I use it?
And I have some examples for you
Examples of complex projects made with WordPress Multisite
When you are thinking about WordPress Network
the first thing that comes to mind is
of course, blog network
And this is the most common use
of WordPress Multisite
The user signs up on the main site
creates his own blog
for example, user.wordpress.com, right
and starts to fill it with his thoughts
That's why Multisite is the ideal fit for media
And Reuters, BBC America, The New York Times
blogs are already using it
Another option are Software as a Service businesses
There are all kinds of examples SaaS businesses
being built on top of WordPress Multisite
We've already seen the great
(in all meanings)
example of WordPress.com
It is the example of Software As A Service business
It lets user to get his blog for free
It will be myname.wordpress.com
but they charge additional fee
for some additional features
For example, for using you top-level domain name
yourname.com
This is how different hosting companies
maybe email marketing companies
planners, schedulers can use WordPress Multisite
Ok, governmental organizations
Multisite is very advantageous
when you need a high degree of independency
for local subsites
but you still want them to
share some common content
That's why it's widely used by
government organizations with
all their wings and departments
For example, Pension fund of Ukraine
(my native country)
which is the main pension plan in Ukraine
There are 24 regions in Ukraine
and each region has its own Pension fund department
During years the local websites
for each regional department
appeared sporadically, without any control
They were created by different people
in a different time
and they were administered by other different people
And that's why needless to say
that they all used to have different design,
different content, different content management systems,
content strategy, different domain names
everything
It was completely different websites
In other words, it was a total mess
But the client wanted all websites
of regional departments to be combined
under one umbrella
So that it won’t be the collection
of 24 separate amateurish looking websites
but it will be a modern efficient governmental portal
So, there should be unified design
for all departments
shared content across all sites,
but still the ability for every local administrator
to add local content
The main administrator should have
all control over the network
while the local administrators should be able
to add local news and information to their sites
So naturally, WordPress Multisite
has been chosen as a solution
The team has done the great work
on this project
We created a Multisite Network
and 24 subsites
for each regional department
All websites got the same theme, same design
All the content from old regional websites
was moved to the newly created ones
The navigation menu in this network
has a very interesting structure
It looks exactly the same over the whole network
But on the regional subsites
some items lead you to the local categories
for example, News, as they are local
and some items lead you to the main site
for example, Services
as they are the same in all regions
The Advanced Custom Fields were used
to organize the information
inside the Network
and we managed to set synchronization across network
So when the information updates on the main site
it gets automatically updated
through the whole bunch of subsites
Every homepage of regional department
has got a map of Ukraine
divided into districts where the user can see
the number of people registered, communities
local contacts and of course
the link to the regional subsite
As this is the Pension fund website
the users are mostly are older persons
There sometimes be a problem with navigation
for them
That's why we set a little reminder, a pop-up
When the user arrives from the regional subbsite
to the main site
he has a tiny popup reminding him
from what local subsite
he has arrived
so in case he needs to go back
he can easily do this and never get lost
Wordpress Multisite proved to be the ideal fit
for the client requirements
The team has done a great job
to make these all work smoothly
and now Pension fund of Ukraine has got
modern, efficient, easy to use system
for all the departments
I think this is a great and rare example
of government caring about the people
and I’m proud of being able to do my bit
OK, but not only governmental organizations
but any other organizations that have
hierarchical set up
can benefit from using WordPress Multisite
Just to list few it may be
Universities with all their faculties and students
creating their own blogs
and here you see the example of Washington State University
which is administered by known
WordPress Multisite Expert, Jeremy Felt
It may be franchising companies
For example the main site
for the parent company and subsites for the local divisions
It may be restaurants, coffee shops, bars
They often have several locations within a city
a country, or across the globe
And while they have some same content
for example, branding and stuff
they would like to communicate differently
in certain areas
for example, menu items
contacts, location and so on
And WordPress Multisite's 5th example
WordPress Multisite can also help you
to build a network of multilingual sites
A separate site is created for each language
and they all are forming the network
It makes the administration much easier
Again, it may be subdirectory setup
It is a fairly common method
The famous cognac brand Courvoisier
is using this kind of set up
They have courvoisier.com/fr for French
courvoisier.com/de for Dutch and so on.
Or subdomain setup:
so you have es.site.com for Spanish
en.site.com for English
and if it is, for example, Germany based company
it will have just domain.com for the main site
Or you can have even Top Level Domain names
like domain.com for English
domain.es for Spanish
and it is very useful to have
different Top Level Domain names
when you are targeting
different local searches
in Google rankings
Because every domain name has its own
domain authority and can get
higher position in local search
By the way, you can connect
Sorry
You can also connect websites content
between each other
For example, you have an English version of the post
and you have the same post in your Italian version
and may have them linked to each other
or other different languages if you want
or may not if you don't want this
OK
And also you may want to redirect users
from the frontend depending on the language
that used in the browser of the user
to the subsite
Don't worry if you are thinking of some
way to use WordPress Multisite
and I didn't name it
It's not supposed to be all inclusive
But just to give you a basic idea
what WordPress Multisite is capable of
So next time when you have a big complex project
in front of you, you will say: Hey!
I know exactly the most efficient way to do this!
And now, guys, I have a question
to you, a little riddle
And the one who will give the right answer first
will get the special present from me, from Ukraine
Please, the riddle is
Name the website that everyone in this room
has visited that is built with WordPress Multisite?
OK, that was the first hand!