Create a network of sites

Question

I understand that WP3 integrated MU-WP inside the core, so now is "pretty easy" create a network of sites.

However, I have some questions about this, because at my work we want to create a network, but already we have some sites, and I don't know how this could affect our current infrastructure.

1. I read that, for a network or sites, wordpress impose certain rules in the url generated. is this true? because if is, it could destroy ten years of google indexing in our site... :(
2. Could we managed differents themes for every site in the network?
3. And finally, in a networks of site, we could manage the register user in a separated way, or all the user of the net have the same access to the rest of the network?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I read that, for a network or sites, wordpress impose certain rules in the url generated. is this true? because if is, it could destroy ten years of google indexing in our site... :(

Mostly whatever works for your individual sites (I assume they are on WP?) will work for multisite. Only explicit limitation that I remember is following:

While permalinks will continue to work, the main blog (i.e. the first one created) will have an extra entry of blog, making your URLs appear like domain.com/blog/YYYY/MM/POSTNAME. (Codex)

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Could we managed differents themes for every site in the network?

Yes, absolutely.

And finally, in a networks of site, we could manage the register user in a separated way, or all the user of the net have the same access to the rest of the network?

Users can be handled separately on per-site basis.

Answer 2

A few more thoughts:

• Users can be handled on a per-site basis, but they are also global in the entire network.

• if you have pre-existing sites, they are not part of the network. Multsite will not be able to magically see them on the server. If you're doing this to manage existing sites, you will need to import them in to the network. http://sillybean.net/wordpress/migrating-single-wordpress-installations-into-multisite-networks/

• this is what wordpress.COM uses to host their blogs. you get the basic version to make your own.

Answer 3

RE: Permalinks

Each site within your network can have it's own permalink structure. The only limitation that I can think of is is you're trying to run sub-domains, which is a hairy issue for any webmaster trying to set it up :)