Multisite Permalinks

Known result of using the subfolder structure, and this is mentioned on the setup page (I’m pretty sure it is).

There’s threads here in the forum on how to remove it if you wish.

Hi- Thanks for the response, I don’t know how I missed all of the other posts when I searched before making a new thread.

I tried this plugin that was suggested in another thread, and it does not work. I then found that the permalink option on the master wordpress options page allows removal of the blog/ slug. That panel is accessible from Super Admin > Sites > Edit > Options as well (under Permalink). Removing blog there worked. Another user also said that the blog/ slug is slated to be removed or made optional in WP3.1, but I haven’t gotten around to checking if that’s true or not.

Thanks.

That is still the plan for 3.1 (we’re on 3.0.1)

ok wait a sec… I thought Bad Things Happen when blog/ is removed altogether… that it’s ok to change the word to site/ or something, but not removed altogether. True or false?

Bad things CAN happen when you change blog to anything (be it site or nothing at all).

Basically if you change it, you stop WordPress from being able to check for collisions between your main site and any generated subsites. Among other things.

I wrote up details about this … https://code.ipstenu.org/switching-to-wordpress-multisite-breaks-links/

Got it. Just to recap, quoting you:

Remember, by doing this you will BREAK the ability of WordPress to check for conflicts between your main site’s urls and any new site.

In other words if I change blog/ to dog/ and then assign the subsite Dog a site address of /dog I will have a problem. But I’m still fuzzy on what the problem is if nothing is there…

One question: Why do you refer to using the Super Admin > Sites > Edit > Options > Permalink method to remove it as a hack? Isn’t that what it’s there for? Or put another way, do the plugins for this purpose do something better?

In other words if I change blog/ to dog/ and then assign the subsite Dog a site address of /dog I will have a problem. But I’m still fuzzy on what the problem is if nothing is there…

Precisely. There will be no problem if you take care of your site. But let’s say you let anyone make a subsite, and THEY pick dog, not knowing you were using it. Or you make a page called dog? Neither of those will get checked by WordPress anymore. Badness occurs. If it’s just you and your site, well, I made the change and I’m not worried.

And I call it a hack because the options section is sort of like the advanced user section. Do NOT mess with it unless you know what you’re doing, playing there can jack your site past repair. Hack is the wrong term. Advanced topic, perhaps? Not something I’d really want everyone and their mom to know until they’re capable of understanding how permalinks work and why the check is important.

I guess the learning curve never flattens out around here…

So aside from unforseen havoc caused by overlaps (just to experience the train wreck, I assigned a site address of “/2010” to a subsite), does leaving out blog/ generate extra rules for url resolution? (Sorry if this terminology is not quite right — I’m trying to parrot what I read in the articles.)

For example in
animals.com/blog/category/dog
the insertion of blog/ pulls the structure up parallel to the subsites, like
animals.com/dog/category/chihuahua
and then the regular rules apply (checking the next part of the url for comments/, search/, category/, tag/, author/, etc).

Whereas removing blog/ altogether like this:
animals.com/category/dog
causes it to branch sooner (at animals.com instead of at animals.com/[whichsite]) and therefore generates extra rules.

Or something like that?

Otto’s post (which is linked to in mine) explains it better, but that’s the gist of it.

And the more rules, as it were, the more expensive, process wise, it is for your server to generate the pretty permalinks.

Hi,

Glad I found this thread, it has explained a lot about /blog/.

One question – if I go into the super user admin panel and remove /blog/ from the permalink structure, is there any way for that to get back in there automatically, without user intervention?

Thanks.

All I can think of is maybe on upgrade.

For me the word “blog” is the problem. I wish it were possible to have a different word with the same functionality.

Some events that my organization covers warn that having “blog” in the title or URL is sufficient to refuse accreditation to journalists on our staff.

I suggest https://www.example.com/site/sitename instead

The problem really is there’s no one-true-way ?? There’s no way that’s perfect for everyone. Some people want /news or /posts or a number. Hopefully this will be fixed for WP 3.1 but at least it CAN be changed.

AFAIK, it;s not on the roadmap for 3.0.

patches welcome. ??

Thanks, that worked for me