Bye Bye WordPress! Hello WordPress MU!!

In last few days, you might have noticed site going down or sometimes showing weird content or no content at all. No, nothing was wrong with our server and no problem was there from our hosting company MediaTemple! Only reason was, we were busy in moving all our blogs, scattered all over the Internet, into a single WordPress MU installation.

It was tougher than anticipated. WordPress MU, unlike its counterpart WordPress (standard package), is very hard to configure. Also to get expected results I needed to modify may WordPress MU core-files. In fact, in the course, I have developed a small plugin for WordPress MU which will be released into open-source after some more testing.

So why we switched to WordPress MU…

We till now have only 3 blogs in network and one more expected to launch in a day or two. So maintaining 3-4 separate blogs isn’t tough task but maintaining 30-40 of them can be nightmare. So with WordPress MU, we are now ready to roll on many blogs into our blog network without much efforts. Setting up a new blog now is just few clicks away!

What it mean to our contributors…

You no need to bookmark all URL’s separately to log into different blogs. All blogs will feature a log-in link in navigation menu. Just log into any blog. You can switch to other blogs with just one click.

rtblogs-network-wordpress-mu-menu-1

Only problem here is, we are using different top-level domains for all our blogs so when you switch to different blog, you will be shown login box again. We recommend, checking “Remember Me” option. That way you need to enter username & password only once per blog and then you can switch between them seamlessly. We are trying to fix this problem as well, but till then bear with us! Sorry!

About AdSense…

If you can notice above, there is “My AdSense” item in above screenshot. You can use that to configure your AdSense account. Instructions are here. You need to do this only once on any blog. Other blogs will use your AdSense settings automatically!

Important: AdSenese plugin we are using to share revenue is originally developed for WordPress single-blog setup. We patched it to work for WordPress MU. As patch was applied in hurry, we request you to verify if your old posts are showing your AdSense correctly. We will soon replace this patched plugin with a new, developed for WordPress MU plugin.

More options for our community soon…

The moment we done with fixing our WordPress MU 2.7, we came across release post for WordPress MU 2.7.1 beta 2. As new release is in beta and we am tired with playing with WordPress MU (for more than a week), we decided to take a brake before going for new minor version. It has some really nice features which we will love to offer, but first we want to get comfortable with WordPress MU. So…

Feedback Please…

We need your feedback as there many be few things left broken or not working. If you come across something which was there in past but broken oe missing, please let us know. πŸ™‚

26 Comments

Satish April 19, 2009

I have 10 blogs now, I think i should move to wordpress MU .
Will get back to you if i run into some trouble.

Harsh Agrawal April 19, 2009

Last night I was talking to one my blogger friend and I was thinking of wordpress MU it’s actually a great idea , along with I suggest have a look at buddypress.

If anyone can think out of box, Worsspress MU will be a great idea.

Pavan Kumar April 19, 2009

Well, this might be a good move for all contributors. All the best…. I think, by your move wp community is going to get gifted with wonderful plugins….

Harsh Agrawal April 19, 2009

Rahul if possible come up with a detailed post on starting with wordpress MU. Such tutorial would be great.

I think because of your movement my blog is showing lots of broken link.

sauravjit April 19, 2009

why I cant see my adsense?

Andrea_R April 19, 2009

Let me know when you release that plugin and I’ll let the community know.

Welcome to the world of WPMU. πŸ™‚

Harsh Agrawal April 19, 2009

@ Sauravjit
nice point here.
I think rahul is still updating his blogs. it might take a day or two.

Gautam April 20, 2009

Yeah, I noticed it on Saturday. I also wanted to know what is OrkutBuddy? :O
(The link in the footer of your blog)

AKM April 20, 2009

so i think your next blog is going to be
http://www.crictalks.com/

IPL Fever…gr8 going man

m i right ???
πŸ˜‰

Swashata April 20, 2009

Err Rahul! What happened to the favicon of devils workshop :O

Am I the only one who is not getting the favicon

Mayur Somani April 20, 2009

Great Move. Please share your experiences of moving to wp mu with us. Looking forward to the plugin.

Hami April 22, 2009

awesome activity on WordPressMU, I love it as you can create your own network of blogs for good. Let it be as strong as its counter part ‘WordPress’.

BuddyPress is also a good option to go for

Rahul Bansal April 22, 2009

@Satish
Sure Satish. You can use WordPress MU Forum as well.
It is small but very active. πŸ™‚

@Harsh
I used BuddyPress 6 months back and it is really nice.
In our situation, WordPress MU is better solution.
If we need BuddyPress MU in future, we can migrate to it easily! πŸ™‚

@Pavan
Yep. I made lots of money by developing commercial wordpress plugins till now. πŸ™‚
I really feel like finding sometime to contribute back to community.
I am already working on 2 plugins for WPMU and hope to release them in open-source by the end of this month.

@Sauravjit
All Adsense ads got removed for sometime as plugin I was using broke after completing migration.
But I applied a code fix so please check again. If you don’t see your ads please contact me asap.

@Andrea_R
Its really great to see your comment.
Your posts on WPMU forum and on your blog helped me a lot. πŸ™‚

@Gautam
OrkutBuddy is delayed project. Arjun is working on it but delay is from my side. πŸ™

@AKM
You are right bro. We launched CricTalks today only. Thats why there was delay in replying to comments from my side.

@Swashata
I will fix favicon issue soon. Thanks for reminder. πŸ™‚

@Mayur & @Harsh (for 2nd question)
I will post about WPMU in detail soon.
I really think all external links should be working as URL structure is same. Still let me know if you find a broken link. Thanks in advance. πŸ™‚

@Hami
Yep. I am really amazed by simplicity WPMU offers for blog network owners. πŸ™‚

AKM April 22, 2009

@rahul

I am not able to login on Devilsworkshop, when i try to login then it takes me to crictalks and i can’t see any link realted to devilsworkshop there, i tried with rtblogs also

please do the needful

Harsh Agrawal April 22, 2009

@ Rahul
I was doing my research on wordpress MU, some how got few good guides but though comments there did n’t satsified me so that I can take step to move my wordpress blog to wordpress MU.
I will highly appreciate if you can come up with a series of post on it soon.
Regards
Harsh

Rahul Bansal April 30, 2009

@Harsh
If you are running 2-3 blogs only then there is no point in moving to WordPress MU.
You will be shocked to know level of apache, linux, php, mysql knowledge it requires.

Vaibhav Kanwal April 22, 2009

The Visual Editor was unavailable when I was writing the post. Could you have a look at the problem

Harsh Agrawal April 23, 2009

Hey rahul
just noticed that author credit plugin is not working..
Can you rectify that as well..

AKM April 23, 2009

@Rahul @Harsh @Vaibhav

I am not able to login on devilsworkshop, whenever i am login it redirects me to crictalks.com

i tried with exact post URL of devilsworkshop but it also redirects me to crictalk.

help will be appreciated

Rahul Bansal April 30, 2009

@AKM
Your issue is fixed now.
There were small problem experienced by those who newly registered on DW in last 10-15 days.

@Harsh
Adsense plugin is deactivated and we are developing a new version of it.
But all authors still have their ads on their posts. We have placed a temporary workaround in codes.

Vaibhav Kanwal April 23, 2009

I haven’t faced any such issues myself. Rahul will be able to address your query. Did u try a different browser?

Rahul April 24, 2009

i am not able login to my word press account.

Rahul Bansal April 30, 2009

@Rahul
Have you registered and clicked activation link?

@Viabhav
Please let me know if you are still having problem with visual editor?

Deep June 4, 2010

Hello Rahul,
I am running 9 blogs on health niche and planning to start few more by this month.
How can i step forward like you with wpmu?

Mauricio Cassio November 16, 2010

Useful post can i have your permision to translate into French for our sites subscribers? Thanks

Vivian Rollins December 7, 2010

Hi Rahual, can you write about moving MU from one domain to another? Currently, there’s not a lot on this topic and I’m about to do this.