One domain, one database (I think), two sites, two themes

  • Resolved shrutigoins

    (@shrutigoins)


    12 years, 2 months ago

    Hi,

    I know this question has been asked in various ways through the forum, but I can’t sort the results I get by date and I know this changed recently.

    I currently own shrutigoins.me. I want to create a test site for another site before transferring the domain name (it’s currently hosted on squarespace and I need to keep it running while I test).

    I would like to do something like testprojectjust.shrutigoins.me (or shrutigoins.me/testprojectjust) and have a different theme and different content for it.

    I read the Create a Network page, but this is the part I’m tripping over:

    A multisite network is a collection of sites that all share the same WordPress installation. They can also share plugins and themes. The individual sites in the network are virtual sites in the sense that they do not have their own directories on your server, although they do have separate directories for media uploads within the shared installation, and they do have separate tables in the database.

    Does this mean that multisites is not what I should be using? Is what I’m trying to do possible?

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • esmi

    (@esmi)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    If you want these two sites to be completely independent, then do not use multisite.

    Thread Starter shrutigoins

    (@shrutigoins)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    Would the suggestion be to buy another domain name to play with?

    catacaustic

    (@catacaustic)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    You can, but there’s no need to do that. You can install a second “site” as a sub-folder or sub-domain of your main site, eg: mysite.com/secondsite or secondsite.mysite.com

    Thread Starter shrutigoins

    (@shrutigoins)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    I thought that’s what the network was?

    catacaustic

    (@catacaustic)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    No. Well, not quite. Network will let you do that, but the sites will have a common user-base and have the ability to share things between each other (sometimes at least). A Network will also share a common admin area and this is where most problems will come in if you’re going to be moving the site somewhere else in the future.

    Having two seperate installations will look the same on teh outside most times, but they will be completely seperated in the back end, so they don’t share anything. This is very important if you’re going to be moving the site anywhere else later on as it’s not quite so common to want to share a user-base across completely un-related sites.

    I’d only suggest using a Network if you’ve got a set of related sites that are all part of a bigger group and you want it to be one big shared experience across all of the sites. From what you’ve written so far it doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re after.

    bemdesign

    (@bemdesign)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    In your case, if you’re not planning on running lots of sites off the same servers (a la wordpress.com), then I’d go with just installing WordPress in a subfolder like catacasutic mentioned.

    Thread Starter shrutigoins

    (@shrutigoins)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    Gotcha! Thanks for explaining.

    I’d like to do subdirectory.domain.com, is this something my hosting service will help me with? (I have HostGator.)

    And once I figure whether it will be that or /subdirectory, I follow these instructions for the database modifications?

    catacaustic

    (@catacaustic)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    Yes, they’ll help you with that. It’s pretty easy to set up through cPanel (and Hostgator uses that), so you should have no troubles. Then also yes, you’d change the table prefix in the second site so that you can set it up with it’s own tables. With your hosting account you shoudl be able to have as many databases as you like though, so it might be worthwhile setting up a seperate database for each site. It just keeps things cleaner and more seperated that way in case you ever have to move anything

    Thread Starter shrutigoins

    (@shrutigoins)

    12 years, 2 months ago

    Oh good! HostGator’s customer service is great, so I’m sure they can help me if I run into any more trouble.

    Thanks for the help!

    Marking this as resolved.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

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