WordPress multi-site

  • Hello, I am looking to make a WordPress multi-site for our company to create two websites which share some of the same page content across both sites and looking for advice on how this should be achieved.

    I would like one wp-admin login which will make changes across both sites but I am concerned there may be limitations with this depending on how the domains are structured and where the sites are hosted.

    1. I would like to use two completely different domains. For example, hellocompany.com and byecompany.com – is this possible?

    2. Do both domains need to be hosted on the same web server?

    3. Once everything is setup, can we share page content across the two websites?

    4. We would like to use plugins which would share data across both sites – more specifically we would like to use the plugin WooCommerce Simple Auctions. This plugin changes the products listed via WooCommerce into auctions. If we created auctions via this plugin, can the same products and auction data be shared across the two websites?
    For example, a user bids on one website, and a user bids on another website, would the data be shared across the two if they are both displaying the same product on both websites?

    5. And finally, are there any limitations with using WordPress multi-site?

    Thank you so much for any advice you can give, we’d like to make sure we are making the right steps in the planning stages of these two websites.

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by nwgilbert.
    • This topic was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by nwgilbert.
Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

  • I don’t think that WordPress multisite is going to do what you want and I don’t think that WooCommerce is set-up to work the way you are hoping. You’ll need someone to custom create this connection for you. This isn’t as easy as you think it would be.

    Thread Starter nwgilbert

    (@nwgilbert)

    Hi @phoenixfireball thanks for your reply. Are you able to elaborate more on your reply as you haven’t provided much information to date on the complications with this setup?

    I have taken advice from a previous developer we have worked with and they have said multi-site will work fine, the only concern is with woocommerce and the simple auctions plugin as there could be some restrictions with sharing the listed products across two websites.

    Can anyone provide further advice on what we are trying to achieve?
    Thank you so much,

    Sharing the data on two sites is difficult. Are you going to share specific tables because if you share everything between two sites then why have two sites?

    Multisite should be on one server (VPS, cloud, etc…) environment and it will use the same database and you can share content between sites, but WooCommerce on one site won’t share data with WooCommerce on another site without you doing some custom development work to make that happen. Same with the auctions plugin. And any system you set-up to share that information might have latency, you might have conflicting bids where two people bid at the same time on different sites. The whole thing is just not built to do what you are hoping to do. It would require a ton of custom development.

    10up did make a plugin for sharing content among sites though – https://distributorplugin.com/ This might help you with posts/pages. You could maybe extend it to share products/auctions but it won’t keep the two of them synced with regards to reviews, purchases, bids, etc…

    Thread Starter nwgilbert

    (@nwgilbert)

    @phoenixfireball Thanks for your reply.
    If we wasn’t to share the bidding data across the two sites, i.e. just list the same auctions across both sites but not share bids received etc. would this be easily achievable without significant custom coding or does the same apply?

    I don’t know how the auction plugin works. If it uses custom posts, it might be fairly easy using something like the distributor plugin. But it all depends on how that plugin works and stores data. I wish I had a more complete answer, but you are asking to do something fairly unique/niche.

    @phoenixfireball thanks for recommending Distributor, much appreciated!

    @nwgilbert the use case you’re looking to support isn’t one we’ve specifically tested with Distributor, but we could assist with custom implementation and development if needed. I’d recommend that you give Distributor a shot and see if it works for you, if it doesn’t then feel free to reach out and we can see what it would take to specifically support your use case.

    Thanks!
    Jeff.

    Thread Starter nwgilbert

    (@nwgilbert)

    Thank you for all your replies @jeffpaul @phoenixfireball

    We’ve been exploring this further and spoke to Simple Auctions who can confirm the following:

    “Simple Auctions plugin uses custom product type which is basically WooCommerce custom post type.”

    If the distributor plugin does this, would it be a fairly straight forward setup?

    1.Setup wordpress multi-site and two domains
    2.Create navigation and basic elements of website, footer etc.
    3.Install WooCommerce, SimpleAuctions and Distributor plugin.
    4.List products and set as auctions with the SimpleAuctions plugin and choose which website to display the items on (or display same item on both websites)

    We are looking for someone experienced that can provide this setup so we have a project here for anyone that is interested. I want to make the right initial decisions on how this would be setup and function.

    If this was the setup, would we be able to post the same items on both sites? If someone bid on one website, would the bids show on the other website if the post(woocommerce product-auction) is linked?

    @nwgilbert I’m not familiar with Simple Auctions and how it plus WooCommerce could interact. I can help answer questions on Distributor, but suffice to say as long as the CPT is registered properly it should be available for Push and Pull distributions with Distributor.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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