Wordpress vs Wordpress MU ?

by pokerdawg

Posted: 14 years ago 20 replies

PROGRAMMING

I've been reading about Wordpress MU (multi user) this morning. Before I start doing a lot of blogs, Im wondering if it is worth using.

Advantages:

- Central management
- Multiple users / blogs
- Install plugins once, then activate/deactivate by blog

Disadvantages:

- All on one IP
- Supposedly not all plugins work
- Some HTML tags disabled

For building a lot of blogs for SEO / income generation, does anyone use MU? Or do you just do a bunch of regular Wordpress?

Thanks

#wordpress

sakto 14 years ago

I use the regular Wordpress and also MU. I have my MU for a social networking site using Buddypress.

For SEO purposes a regular Wordpress for your blogs is the best choice.
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Selena85 14 years ago

Hi pokerdawg,

I have used WPMU before, though not for internet marketing. I was planning on using it to make lots of micro niche sites for adsense, but I decided to wait because Wordpress and Wordpress MU are going to merge into one single project.

It's probably going to happen very soon, in version 3.0, which should go out early next year.

In short words, if you install the regular version of Wordpress now, you'll be able to use as wpmu in the near future.
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pokerdawg 14 years ago

Thanks - I'll stick with regular WP for now (which I'm still learning). You're right - I just updated to 2.9.0 ... the writing is on the wall for 3.0
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- Selena85 14 years ago
  
  Yes, that's what I thought too. I think transition will be a lot smoother from wp 2.9 to 3.0, than from wpmu to wp.
  
  Plus if you're still learning, wpmu can be a pain to setup. That's one of the things that got me excited about the merge. I can't wait!
  
  Thanks
  
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pokerdawg

14 years ago

On a slightly different note...

On the first few I set up, I installed about 20 plugins...

On the next WP that I set up, can I just FTP down the plugins from the plugins folder on site 1 and upload to the plugins folder on site 2, without going through the "find ... choose ... install" process that I was doing on the first site?

I would imagine I still may need to activate them, but to go through 20 "batch installed" plugins and just click activate will be a lot faster than what I did the first time.

Is that the right way to do it?

Thanks

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Selena85 14 years ago

Sure, you can do that. I have a zip file with my favorite plugins and themes, that I upload to every new install and than batch activate them just as you described.
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Intrepreneur

14 years ago

Originally Posted by pokerdawg

On the next WP that I set up, can I just FTP down the plugins from the plugins folder on site 1 and upload to the plugins folder on site 2, without going through the "find ... choose ... install" process that I was doing on the first site?

Thanks

Do not do this if you have already activated the plugins on your first install. It will mess with your WP installation guaranteed. Always use fresh and not previoulsy activated plugins.

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Selena85

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Intrepreneur

Do not do this if you have already activated the plugins on your first install. It will mess with your WP installation guaranteed. Always use fresh and not previoulsy activated plugins.

Really? I didn't know about this... Why is that?

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eddiejames 14 years ago

The actual time it takes to install wordpress is very small, especially if you have an autoinstaller such as Fantastico on cPanel with your hosting or server.

Especially installing plugins and themes is now very much quicker as you can search and install or upload these right from within wordpress admin. Whereas before it involved FTPing the files across.

As you said, having a lot of websites on a single IP address can raise flags with google. Especially if those websites are all around a similar topic...
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pokerdawg 14 years ago

Great, thanks. Right now I'm using iPage.com for my first blogs. They have an installer as you describe Eddie, which does make it easier. Even with that, it probably takes 20 minutes to config. If I can just get one right, download and create one zip with everything, that will be good for larger scale roll outs.

Selena, are you FTP to the server, downloading the plugins folder and dropping it into a zip? Do you then upload that ZIP through the control panel & let it install or are you just FTP to the new site and upload all of the folders back into the /plugins folder on that new site?
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- Selena85 14 years ago
  
  I downloaded both the plugins and themes folder from one of my sires using FTP and compressed them in a zip file. For the other sites, I install normally using Fantastico, then upload the zip file to wp-content folder using the control panel and unzip. Than all you have to do is head to admin area, activate your theme and plugins and that's it.
  
  There may be easier ways to do it... But that's how I do it.
  
  I've heard of a tool called Wordpress Desktop Installer (or something like that) on a webinar, that supposedly does all that automatically, but I haven't researched it yet.
  
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customertools 14 years ago

I use WPMU on a LOT of websites, love it, but it's really not for novices... BUT IF you need subdomains, it's better than any of the wordpress plugins that allow that. The Domain mapping also, can show a different IP address than the main host's IP address, because it uses the DNS a record mapping. (I'm not 100% sure that it doesn't show up as the same ip address, but I've never had a problem with google slapping multiple blogs on 1 install)

-Brad
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milo_pl 14 years ago

If you want tight comparison check this link:
WordPress vs. WordPress MU: A Comparison
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- 2 replies
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- Tyler Pratt 14 years ago
  
  A great blog for alot of cool add ons to WPMU is
  WordPress MU and BuddyPress plugins, themes, support, tips and how to's - Everything WordPressMU at WPMU.org
  
  I have use them and the best one is there supporter add on. This allows you to charge a monthly fee if you want others to create a blog.
  
  Thanks
  
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- Byrt M 14 years ago
  
  Thanks for that comparison link, I will check it out.
  Thanks pal
  Byrt
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  thedigitalshopper 14 years ago
  
  WordPress MU is a multi user version of WordPress. This software was expanded to allow hosts to support multiple WordPress blogs. It is mostly the same product but it does have some differences that help support the multiple blog environment. The people on WordPress MU's website claim a 95-99% similarity with WordPress.org base product.
  
  Thanks
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  jminkler 14 years ago
  
  You don't need MU anymore with WP 3.0 all installs are "mu" .. read the docs
  
  Thanks
  
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rufaswan

14 years ago

There's no need to use wordpress mu just because you want to have one wordpress installation for multiple websites/blogs. You can still use normal wordpress for multiple sites, by adding the code on top of wp-config.php

<?php

$host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];

$parts = explode('.',$host);
print_r($part);

/*if ($parts[3] = "") {
$domain = $parts[0];
} else {
$domain = $parts[1];
}*/

$domain = $parts[0];

switch ($domain) {
case "blog1":
$db = "database1";
break;
case "blog2":
$db = "database2";
break;
}

define('DB_NAME', $db);

Note: Each wordpress installed will used 1 database each. So there will be no conflicts for plugins that uses fixed prefixes in database.

Note 2: The only thing you'll need to remember is to change permalink (.htaccess) and rename sitemap.xml on your google sitemap settings ASAP because those files are shared.

- Rufas

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Kirk Ward

14 years ago

Originally Posted by rufaswan

Rufus,

(1) Will this configuration allow each website to have its own theme and install or manage its own plugins, or are they all clones of each other?

(2) I am mainly a cut and paste coder, so since it looks to me like you only list two databases, does the code have to be replicated for each additional blog, or does this code allow unlimited expansion?

(3) What folder or target to I point any second tier domain name to?

Thanks in advance for your answer,
Kirk
.

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Bruce Hearder 14 years ago

Wordpress MU is great!! Its an affiliate marketers dream come true!

95% of all all properly written plugins work just fine with MU, so you can generally find something that will work with MU if you spend the time.

Its definitely worth spending the time with it..

Bruce
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Wordpress vs Wordpress MU ?

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