Sub-directory multisite install – Google Spider entire MultiSite the same?

  • Erik

    (@southernutahautism)


    13 years, 12 months ago

    I have a Multisite installation that is bascially all one “big site” ran with sub-directory daughter sites. This is something we could have done with categories, but we went with having the main domain be the “main portal site” and each sub-flavor is a multisite blog, so it’s

    domain.com
    domain.com/sub-category1
    domain.com/sub-category2
    domain.com/sub-category3
    etc etc

    Now, I realize that wordpress MS looks at these as separate websites, since Multisite is set up to have sites be created under a master domain, and then the subdomains or /directories are the discrete sites.

    Since really I have just one “big site” that is comprised of the main domain blog site, and then the daughter sites, does Google treat my entire network as one big site. There is lots of cross linking between the two, but things like the XML Google Sitemap Generator only generates maps on a blog-by-blog basis, it doesn’t drill down from the main domain into the daughter sites. I have XML sitemap generators on each daughter site, but those get submitted separately as WordPress looks at those as sites that aren’t all conjoined.

    So what is my best bet here since I’ve got this multisite monster I want all spidered and crawled as one big entity? Generate my own sitemap of the whole monster from a 3rd party source?

    And also, since it’s all under one domain and in a directory structure, if there’s cross links throughout all the sites, does the Google crawler just crawl it all anyways? Are there any SEO implications to Multisite in a sub-directory structure, and treating it all as a big monster site?

    Please ask any clarifying questions you need, since I bet I am not being 100% clear.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Google sees it as one big huge site. Because it’s subfolders.

    And from running my own networks, the big G will eventually crawl everything there, especially with cross linking happening.

    Google actually has no way to tell it’s multisite. It knows it’s wordpress though.

    Not sure what you mean by SEO “implications” though. Other than yeah, in subfolders it sees it all as one site, it’s not worse than anything else, just different than if it were subdomains. (which is not what you want).

    If it helps, I’ve run a few networks without sitemaps. I’ve only ever seen G skip a page here and there without it.

    If you really really want, you can generate a master sitewide feed, and submit that feed as a sitemap using google webmaster tools. (Gee look, not even a sitemap plugin there…;P )

    But the short version is: no sitemap does not mean google will not index anything.

    Thread Starter Erik

    (@southernutahautism)

    That answers my question.

    This site should have been 1 big site that made use of categories and taxonomies, but we’re stuck now with subfolder sites. From the front end it doesn’t really hurt, but it does basically turn each “category” into a separate site, which means we’re managing plugins and SEO for each sub site and the main site, instead of just having it be 1 wordpress solo install.

    So basically we repeat the same SEO settings and plugin settings for 7 sites when just 1 site would have worked.

    I’m presuming Andrea, that you’d agree that what I’m describing would have been much easier on me if I just did it all in a solo-WP and used categories and custom loops and styled each “section” with it’s own CSS to maintain the “color pallete” thing we’re going for… :/

    I’m presuming Andrea, that you’d agree that what I’m describing would have been much easier on me if I just did it all in a solo-WP and used categories and custom loops and styled each “section” with it’s own CSS to maintain the “color pallete” thing we’re going for… :/

    Yep.

    So basically we repeat the same SEO settings and plugin settings for 7 sites when just 1 site would have worked.

    Coulda set those up with the replicator plugin and one click.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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