Removing /blog/ from multisites cause infinite redirection

Question

I have a wp installed with multisite enabled and working with subdirectories. I noticed that in the main blog (the one that exists by default on the root), the posts links had a "/blog" in the url before the permalink.

So logged as the network admin I went to "All Sites > Edit" and I removed "/blog" from the permalink setting. But now when I visit a post at for example mydomain.com/post-name, I get a 301 redirect to the same url (/post-name), so the redirection is infinite.

Why am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

there is a plugin to allow this to happen. and it works quite well actually if you follow instructions.

http://www.thinkinginwordpress.com/2009/09/remove-blog-slug-from-the-default-blog-of-wpmu-subdirectory-installation/

the main reason wordpress MS does this is to prevent new sites that are created from conflicting with possible categories or tags that are created. for example, having someone create a site called topics while having a category named topics would cause issues. by having /blog slug in the URL for the main site, using subdirectories, this remedies those situations.

however, if you aren't going to allow users to create sites, and you know exactly how your network and categories will be laid out, then you can use said plugin or do it yourself. the only real problem comes from when you have removed the /blog slug and have a site and top level categories/tags that would be duplicated.

if you do allow users to create site with your MS install, then you can simply disallow the categories you have created from being used in the WP admin area, for blog creation.

Answer 2

Why am I doing wrong?

You're breaking WordPress. On a subdirectory installation, the /blog permalink is there on purpose and for a very specific reason - to make your main site continue to work while still allowing you a network dashboard.

When you install a subdirectory site, WordPress automatically uses /blog for the main site to prevent collisions. There are ways to not use /blog, though.

1. Use a subdomain installation instead (possibly not an option)
2. There are plugins that claim to allow you to remove /blog

Really, it's there to keep other things from breaking ... so by going in and manually removing it, you're taking things into your own hands and breaking something else.