Is MultiSite the Correct Solution for a Corporate Site with Searchable Regions?

Question

I am working on a project that needs a website with region specific pages. One of the key requirements is that while the blog, about and other pages are the same for all regions pricing, staff, booking and events pages would be specific to the region.

Think something like this: https://locations.massageenvy.com/utah/american-fork/356-north-750-west.html

One caveat in this case is that we don't necessarily have a specific store location, but rather a service area (kind of like handyman service websites).

Is MultiSite with subdirectories the correct solution in this case? Is there a different (better) way to build a site like this?

If multisite is the correct solution, is there an existing plugin for building a location search feature?

Answer 1

Think of multisite as many blogs with separate content all bundled under one domain name, as in www.example.com/blog1 and www.example.com/blog2 . Each has their own content in the same database.

Blog1 has content, Blog2 has content, but you can't see Blog1 content in Blog2. So a multisite will not work without significant changes...

...which you are going to have to do anyway. You will need to create a template that can display variable content from a separate database table. The template would display the basic stuff for a page/post, then have code that would select content specific to the region.

There may be plugins that will let you do this, but this place doesn't recommend plugins...

Answer 2

Instead of a multisite install, I would probably go with hierarchical custom taxonomy for areas and subareas, and non-hierarchical custom post type for stores / services with archive page. Then have custom templates for each view - cpt archive, single cpt and taxonomy. The cpt archive template could be the search page for areas/stores/services.

This way you can have the common content (as pages or posts) and the region specific content in one dashboard.