I currently have three independent WordPress blogs hosted on a single shared server.
The main domain (we'll call domain-A
is sitting in the public_html
folder. domain-B
and domain-C
are separate WP installs residing as subfolders within public_html
. Each of the installs is mapped to its own, unique URL.
Here's the structure of the server:
/public_html
..core WP files, etc
/domain-B
...WP install core files
/domain-C
...WP core...
I am attempting to set up a WP multisite, incorporating all 3 blogs under domain-A
as my main parent site.
My plan is to create the multisite in another subfolder in public_html
and once the site is configured, I want to seamlessly - with minimal downtime - swap out the independent sites for the one multisite.
How would I do that?
Here's what the new server config might look like:
/public_html
..core WP files, etc
/domain-B
...WP install core files
/domain-C
...WP core...
/new_multisite
Ideally, it would be great if I just had one wp multisite install in the root folder and could remove the other independent installs, e.g:
/public_html
... wp multisite core files, etc..
I read some stuff about configuring my local hosts
file on my system to be able to re-route the IP address to a domain URL (still a little fuzzy on some of the details of that) but I don't see how that helps with a live site and/or a remote server.
Also, is it safe to create a "sandbox" site in a subfolder on the shared server? How can I keep this folder undiscovered or inaccessible? I am considering doing the setup on my local computer using WAMP as a dry run but I'll still have to contend with uploading it to the live server, testing it, then making the switch from 3 independent blogs to one multisite.
Edit: I'm learning now that .htaccess
can be used to control redirects to a subdomain, so theoretically, all requests to the original domain(s) can be redirected to sites/domains within the multisite. Obviously, the specifics of this starts to get a little hairy.
Thanks in advance,