MU multi domain site_url missing http

Two additional notes:

1 – this applies to both thirdlevel.rootdomain.com sites (ie, regular third level on the base domain of the MU site) and other domains http://www.domain.com which are on the MU sites, and

2 – other stand alone wordpress sites on the same server (dedicated, full control, no other users) do no have this issue, and

3 – the issue is the same no matter what theme is used, and appears related only when the wordpress install is set to be MU, and

4 – the problem occurs on an MU install with only the default site (ie, no user sites, just the MU default signup page site).

Mika, look closely: there are no HTTP in front of those links.

For a forgiving bot or code checker, those things work. For more strict checkers, the links are all broken (no protocol given) or will end up combined with your base href to create a 404 (as it will point to your site, not the true destination).

Only happens on MU sites, does not happen on stand alone sites.

They may be “correct” but it is not consistent. on MU, they are like this. On non-MU sites, they are the other way. What happens is that bots that look for “http” as a trigger to spot a link are NOT seeing it. Instead, it generates errors. Some see it and attach the document root instead, creating 404s.

It would appear even Googlebot fails on some of these, at least what I am seeing in the apache errorlog.

Why would it be one way on MU sites, and the same links displayed diffently on non-MU sites?

Oh, those sites don’t use SSL – it’s a royal pain to setup for MU sites that use multiple domains.

I have done testing by stripping a site down to the basic 2014 theme and disabling all plug ins (a pain in the butt, as it affects every other site on the install) and I still see the same results. I don’t have a single stand alone site with the issue (and I manage many), but all of the MU installs have the issue – even with the same themes and plugin mix

PRURLs seem like a great idea in theory. In reality, there are any number of bots that don’t work with it, and some of them are intensely agro about it. It’s especially annoying if your theme or posts contain a number of images,as each one is converted, creating a bunch of false relative paths for bots (including Googlebot and now Bing) who trip over this problem and flail around generating piles of 404s and server load (because most 404 pages trigger another wordpress page load, which loads the system up).

Can you point me to anything here on the wordpress site about it?

WHole list on the serve? Pagespeed, memcache, mod expires, and about 200 other things. Hard to tell. I have sites on cloudflare and site off cloudflare, sites on and off mod pagespeed. I cannot spot a relationship between those and the sites that do and do not have the appropriate siteurl, except that MU sites have issues and regular sites don’t – on the same server.

Not sure what is causing it, the only commonality I see is MU. I will have to take a domain out of an MU install and move it just to see.

Actually, pagespeed is pretty much required otherwise wordpress is too slow for google and sites get pushed down results.

Again, why would it do that for MU sites but not stand alone sites on the same server running the same config for all?

Ipstenu, no, the htaccess is as simple as it’s allowed to be. Has to be when you are using multiple domains, you can’t do anything “magic” without affecting every other site as well.

So the answer is a resounding no. htaccess is plain.