Wordpress MU with Domain Mapping
 

Many of us use Wordpress for our blogs. This eventually leads to many many wordpress installations. This can be an administrative nightmare because of the the frequent security patches and general updates to the wordpress code. We all know how important it is to keep up to date and the problems that happen when you don't.

Wordpress MU which is the multi-blog version is supposed to to resolve this however it only works in two ways.

Subdomain mode:

http://blog1.domain.com
http://blog2.domain.com

Subfolder mode:

http://domain.com/blog1
http://domain.com/blog2

For many of us we want to use multiple domains with our blogs so and you can forward a domain but this isn't ideal. I've come across two plugins that allow MPMU to work with multiple domains through "domain mapping".

FREE Plugin - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...omain-mapping/

The free plugin only works if WPMU is in subdomain mode.

Paid Plugin ($15) - http://wpmututorials.com/simple-mult...plugin-e-book/

this actually allows you to run multiple WPMU's with one install and works in subdomain and subfolder modes. I emailed the author to ask how it was better and different and this was the reply.

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Here's what ours does:
- the domain mapping menu is under site admin, not available to users
- you can add a domain to subdirectory blogs. With the other one, you can;t do this.
- you can map a domain from the main blog, you don't need to go to the backend of the blog you want to map
- it also changes internal links to things like photos and permalinks to other entries on that blog.

Remote login not supported means, you have to log in to each mapped domain, you can't be logged in to one to get logged in to all of them.
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This has me very excited because now I can run many blogs with custom domains with one install thus lowering admin overhead a great deal.

Hope you guys find this useful.

nice wordpress post.

I have this setup and testing multiple domains from 1 admin. I'm moving old wp sites and some small static sites into the new wpmu installation. It forces you to strip the 'www' but sends a 302 redirect so your listings should remain.

This has been useful:

Plugin: Redirection
Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors
http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/

Plugin: BuddyPress
Adds additional social networking like features and a central navigation bar to manage your blogs. Helpful with multiple authors.
http://buddypress.org/download/

More plugins that you may be interested in using here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/wordpressmu
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/wpmu

Useful info, thanks, peedy.

The OP's plugin is what you've been using? How's it been working out? I'm considering starting up a blog network across multiple domains and saw when you posted about this originally.

I moved a few domains into the system, using the original (free) plugin. The free plugin btw, is from the actual wpmu coder himself. I'm waiting a month or maybe until the next PR update, not sure, to see if it made much difference under the new system. It's very easy from my end of things though to manage the sites, add new content, etc.. this way. Plus, only 1 install to update of themes, plugins, and core.