Creating a multilingual multisite

Question

I would like to create a WordPress installation that manages several domains, from what I've read I need to use WordPress multisite for this, but the scenario is a little more specific than that, the case is as follows:

I have three domains:

exapmle.no | example.se | example.dk

The main site is the one already in place on example.no, but my client is expanding to other countries and would like to have his site translated to two other languages.

exapmle.no - Norwegian | example.se - Sweedish | example.dk - Danish

The sites will be identical, and only have their content translated, but have some posts on all sites, translated to the language of that site, and some posts will only be present on one site.

How would I go about creating a system like this?

(The translations will be provided by professional translators, I'm not looking for an auto translate solution)

Answer 1

WordPress multisite can handle different top-level domains by default. Just set up a »Sub-Domain Install« multisite starting from your existent WordPress (example.no). Then, add a new site with an arbitrary subdoman (e.g. se.example.no). Right after you created the new site, got to the sites edit screen (edit site) and change the domain to what ever you want. In your case from se.example.no to example.se. (Here's an illustrated description on how to add and change a new site: https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/a/184667/31323 )

You will also have to set the constant COOKIEDOMAIN to an empty string value in your wp-config.php

define( 'COOKIEDOMAIN', '' );

To manage the content relations between the sites there's a plugin called »MultilingualPress« which follows the concept you described in your question: one site → one language/region.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/multilingual-press/

https://github.com/inpsyde/multilingual-press/

Disclosure: The plugin is maintained by an organisation, I'm working at. It was a »premium plugin« but meanwhile its completely free of charge. The recommendation based on experiences I made with the plugin on my private blog.