Many Webmasters wanted to publish subsites for other contents,–rather setting up a directory-based subsites, but these subsites what you’ve trying to implement needs some little work via any web-hosting service. It’s easier to use these subdomains because, it can be easy for your visitors to jump from one tsite to the another,–without needing to register for multiple domain names. For this instance, you wanted to have a support center for your site, but you experienced an issue with subdomains because, you discovered an error page via any cable provider. This is common,–due to a missing configuration with your control panel on your hosting controller.
Some people were frustrated because, they have trouble with setting up their subsites via subdomains. And those are these common questions:
- How do I set my subsites for my visitors to read stories, and other content?
- I want to run my own ad hub/network via a subdomain,–not a directory?
- Why are my subsites are NOT showing what I expected to?
- Why a wildcard subdomain is needed? This is new to me!
You went to the WordPress Support Forum – Fixing WordPress. You posted a question to get help with WordPress issues.
“I had a WordPress multisite, but it’s not working! How do I fix it?”
This is a common question found in this forum via a tag, multisite. And this is also common to newly experienced WordPress users who were NOT familiar with setting up subdomains via a hosting panel. And some users reported issues regarding subsites not working as expected.
If you had a problem like this… there’s a way to fix it. To do this; you need to be comfortable with using a control panel for your server. If you were using CPanel, or any other GUI; follow these steps:
- Log into your hosting control panel.
- Go to subdomains, and add an * at the subdomain name field, and save your settings. If you were using a zone editor; you may need to create a cname record for your wildcard domain.
- Go to your WordPress control panel, and create a test subsite, if it works… you are done. Be sure to clear your test site, and create a desired site. For example; a wiki for your books, and other content.
Why a wildcard domain is necessary for subsites via WordPress?
That makes it easier for you to create new sites as quick as a flash,–without needing to install multiple installs of WordPress themselves. That can also save you storage costs, and processing power. This is usually necessary for shared servers. Cause without a wildcard domain; your subsites will NOT work. Never the less… don’t delete your wildcard subdomain. If you delete it; that can cause your subsites to fail,–causing further issues.
Note
It will not work if you were connecting your external site to your website,–ran by a search engine, or a third party host.
Sometimes a double subdomain can be possible, but your web-hosting provider isn’t going to be capable of handling this format. Be sure to check with their information to varify if your hosting provider can handle it.
Differences between individual installs of WordPress, and multisite install with dynamic sites via subdomains
| If you were setting up individual installs | If you rely on a multisite |
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Each install of wordpress is independent via its own subdomain. This is usual if you were not used to multisite installs. The Drawback is you have to rememver each password to log into your individual WordPress Site. wordpress.com offers Jetpack with Single Sign-on features with one click. If any of the subdomains were deleted your sites will no longer work. You should avoid doing this at all costs. If you were using directories for dynamic sites; your URLs will be too long to share via social media. The work around this problem; you can shorten these links by changing the link settings on each dashboard on your WordPress control panel. Twitter is the known site where long URLs are the known problem when sharing links. |
This the most easiest way to have multiple subdomains with just 1 install of WordPress on your server. The advantage of this approach is; you can host multiple blogs/sites at once,–without needing to install individual install of WordPress. You can save disk space because you take less resources, and your server won’t be clogged with other sites that are running. What’s mentioned earlier; you need to implement a wildcard subdomain for this to work,–unless if you prefer to use directories instead. You don’t need to remember each password as youedit each site. |