WordPress 3.0: How To Enable Multi-Site Feature

WordPress 3.0’s release date is almost upon us. It’s one of those major updates that we all have been waiting for. The new code has many advantages over the current code that most of you are running on your websites. But my favorite WordPress 3.0 feature is the multi-site feature. Prior to WordPress 3.0, you could not host multiple WordPress sites using one install (you could but you’d need WordPress MU). That functionality is now embedded into WordPress 3.0, allowing WP webmasters to create separate blogs for each author on their website. It can save webmasters time as well (not having to deal with WPMU and all its hassles). No need to install WordPress 100 times to start 100 new websites. Just install it once and add new websites in the back-end.

As you may have guessed, this feature is not enabled from the get go. You’ll have to do some small modifications to your website and .htaccess file to get this feature to work. In order to enable it, you’ll have to add the following code to your wp-config.php file.

Once you have added the above code, you are going to see the Network option under Tools menu in your back-end. There is still some more work to be done though.

Go to Tools -> Network to bring up the above page. Here you can choose how you want your additional sites to be added to your WordPress site. I personally prefer sub-directories, but it depends on what you want to do with your WordPress network. Whatever you do, don’t forget to add the following lines to your wp-config.php and .htaccess files (your URL will be different).

Once you have added all the above lines to your files, you should be able to create new sites from your Super Admin menu. You can create new users or have the system do it for you, based on your e-mail. This goes without saying but choose your passwords carefully.

There you have it. You do want to check with your web host to see whether your hosting plan can handle multiple sites. Some hosts do not handle it that well. Regardless, this is a nice feature that is going to make life easier for a lot of folks.