[Plugin: WordPress MU Domain Mapping] It's a nightmare to setup!

OK, I understood what went wrong, and I almost got it to work.

But I have another problem.

I have a primary blog which is on a primary domain. Let’s call it domain1.com. My network works with subdomains. So, I have in the end:

domain1.com
sub1.domain1.com -> https://www.domain2.com
sub2.domain1.com -> https://www.domain3.com

And, in order to avoid domain squatting, domain2a.com points to https://www.domain2.com, domain3a.com points to https://www.domain3.com

As I understood, we can’t change domain1.com mapping, in order to have it pointing to https://www.domain1.com and having domain1a.com and so.

What can I do?

Do I have to buy a random domain name to my primary blog, so that I can properly use my domain name? But can I change my primary blog domain name?…

Yes, I can (change the primary domain name).

To do that, I used a wonderful and life saving plugin named “Search and Replace”.

It allowed to search and replace directly on my database the now old primary domain name with the new one. It worked beautifully, and I have been able to finish my network domain mapping.

Now it works as intended. ??

@braintrash,

I figured out what works with WordPress 3.3, on shared hoating accounts, with subdomains.

Here’s the full directions for WordPress 3 Multi-Site Domain Mapping

Not sure what you mean “change domain1.com mapping, in order to have it pointing to https://www.domain1.com “. From what you say after, I am guessing that domain1.com is a domain with an existing web site you want people to find? If so, definitely have a random domain name (.info was cheap recently) for WordPress; you don’t want visitors to your domain seeing WordPress stuff. Yes, with a new (random) domain name, you can have your hosting tech support change your setup so randomdomain.com points to /public_html/ and domain1.com is an add-on domain

I covered how to have WordPress in /public_html and your non-WordPress web sites in /public_html/domain1, and as many blogs as you want. See WordPress 3 Multi-Site with Existing Web Sites.

Leave comments here or on my blog with any questions, maybe I’ll know the answers.

First, thank you very much for this kind answer.

I will try to explain my problem better, since it might be useful for many people.

I have my own domains – let’s call them mydomain1.com, mydomain2.com, etc. – and I had my web hosting domain that I will call hosting.com.

When I created my network, my mistake have been to use mydomain1.com instead of hosting.com as my primary blog.

As you know, once the network is created, you can’t map any domain to the primary blog ; it is stuck to the domain you choose, without even the ability to use the www prefix for it.

Also, which was another misleading thing, the option for mapping is of course not available on the primary blog.

Once I understood that the domain mapping plugin was indeed working properly by checking secondary blogs, my problem was to be able to map something to my primary blog.

The solution was to create another secondary blog which would receive mydomain1.com, and that I would be able to map the way I wanted (www prefix, and some other domains pointing to it).

Once the secondary blog was created, I download my config file, changed domain1.com into hosting.com.

Then, I install the plugin “Search & Replace”, asked it to look for “domain1.com” and replace it with “hosting.com” in my sql database.

Once done, I uploaded the new wp-config file, and it worked beautifully. I now have a useless site on my network, which will be used for prototyping designs as I work on them and all (and so, it becomes useful), and my primary blog (which is now technically a secondary blog) works the way I intended it to. ??