Oh they also said it is also much better for SEO purposes to do them individually.
Most of this doesn’t sound right to me.
The part that they have right is that if something “breaks” one site, it wil break every site, assuming that they all use the same theme and plugins. But, that’s why you ste up development environments… to test any updates before you apply them to your live site.
Now, where they are wrong…
There’s still the same number of databsae queries if it’s run on one database or on several. The load on the DB server won’t be any different. The same goes for server requests. When the sites are all running on the same server, then it’s the same amount of server requests for a single installation as it is for multiple installations. The server may load the sites slower, but the only difference is a very (and I mean VERY) small difference in the request time to process the extra rules in the ,htaccess file. That sort of overhead is nothing compared to just one database call.
I can’t believe that it’s “safer” to run multiple instances. You have the same security issues doing that. The main difference is that you jsut need many more hosting accounts to do that (big hint.. sounds like they are trying to up-sell you to a multiple or reseller account).
What I read into their response to you is that their servers aren’t that powerful and can’t handle a concentration of sites like that so they want you to buy more hosting accounts and spread the sites out over different servers to minimise the chances of their servers coming up short.
The choice is up to you as to what you do.
Oh they also said it is also much better for SEO purposes to do them individually.
Only if they can host each differnt webiste in a separate C-class IP address. If they can’t do that, then it makes no difference at all to SEO.
I know they are not trying to sell me anything cause this is a shared hosting service and they said if when all my sites were up and bringing a lot of traffic and if I was using to much bandwidth I would need to transfer over to a virtual server (someone else).
I think what he meant was the wordpress database and the queries coming back to it.
He said I would not need more hosting accounts cause I have ulimited domains and can all be under main root domain.
OK, but it still puts the same strain on the server. The only difference is that there’s more files to look after, and every instalation must be updated and upgraded individually.
Right that makes sense. So just how much can that single wordpress database handle before there is a problem? Is this a valid concern?
Are there a lot of people out there doing this this way and do they have any issues with database being overloaded?
A single database can handle a lot. It all dpeneds on the quailty and speed of the hardware that it’s hosted on. There is no magic number for what works and what doesn’t. It could be 20 requests a second on some old out-dated hardware, or it could be a few million requests a second if you have some really good stuff.
I will say that there’s really not many people doing what you are doing. When most people have a popular site they can get the hardware set up for the single site, but trying to maintain 100 or more blog sites is an administration nightmare. I have problens keeping up with content for 4 or 5, let alone trying to do something unique enough to keep 100 going at the same time.
You have pretty much all of the pros and cons for this, so really now it’s time for you to put on your thinking cap and make your own decisions. Everyone on here can give their own opinio, but in th eend you need ot be the one to say yes or now to it all.
I plan on putting together a team to help me manage it all and maybe create multiple multisites with 1 for each team member.
I believe I am going to try the multisite because I think it will be easier to manage then individual sites and can do some changes or installs to entire group of sites at one time.
I will put it to the test…do regular backups and when do updates I will learn how to do what you suggested “development environments… to test any updates before you apply them to your live site.”
Now I will begin to get this setup as you suggested and I may be back with more questions so would like to leave this thread open for awhile yet.
thank you
