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  1. #1

    WordPress MultiSite Reseller

    Hello all,

    I'm looking for some thoughts on my idea here.

    My idea is to provide simple Wordpress websites to local businesses and individuals who want a WordPress site, with managed features. So basically they get exactly the same thing they'd get at WordPress.com except a custom domain and me behind it. I guess the idea here is that we run multisite and maintain it with plugin updates and what not. The user can login and manage their pages and make changes/blog posts, ect like normal.


    Anyone have experience with this?

    I think it'd be a great opportunity. A lot of my customers don't care about cPanel or any of the back end. They just want a simple backend to login to and work with. Most of my customers never even login to their cPanel, We just install and setup their site for them and they use that to administer.

    Thanks for your thoughts!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    5,393
    WP + management and design can definitely be a profitable model. I would avoid MultiSite if at all possible, it's best to setup each WP install within its own account. A reseller account is perfect for this usage to start with.

    If you're going to do this seriously with scale, you'll want to move to a VPS or dedicated system in the future. You'll then be able to run all the installations from a shared code base (via symlinks, bind mounts, etc.) while still keeping installation specific files and dbs separate.
    WHMEasyBackup.com - Take Control Of Your Backups!
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  3. #3
    Thanks for your reply. I agree the model is great, I'm just trying to work out the logistics of how to make it as cost effective, both from the customer end and from our end. I did worry about the commingling of databases and how to deal with email accounts. the other consideration was space. Running from one set of the WordPress installation files will save us space, thus giving us more space to give to the client for their photos and other stuff on their site. It's also much easier to provision for new clients. Currently we haven't reached a level for VPS to be cost effective for us, but I do believe it's on the horizon in the future and we're watching that closely.

    You mentioned using a VPS in the future and being able to run the installations from a shared code base, just curious where I can find some additional information on how that's done?
    I guess if multisite isn't the solution, maybe their is a way to use WHMCS to provision new clients and WordPress installation from a single code base (I honestly hadn't thought of symlinks). Our current model is the simple website model. Each client gets an account, we'll run all the WordPress setup for them, install their theme, setup their emails, very hands off for the customer. We give them all of the cPanel information if they ever choose to learn cPanel, but most just don't care, they just want it to work. Getting to something that can auto provision and setup their WordPress install is the next step to making it automated on our end.
    Thanks again for your reply and thoughts.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    5,393
    The most simplistic way of sharing a CMS code base is with symlinks. Basically all core files that are unchanged between installations are accessed via symlinks that point to the single shared installation. User specific files (the config file, user content directories, etc.) are the only files that really exist within the user accounts. When updating you only need to update the shared code and push the mysql changes to the installations (you'll want to do this in a procedural manner from the command line via a custom sh/bash script). It will take a little time to transition to this type of setup, but when dealing with hundreds or thousands of installs it can be a necessity.

    There's probably a step-by-step tutorial online somewhere specifically for WP. I've run this type of setup for a number of years now in combination with custom CMS systems, it's very scalable.
    WHMEasyBackup.com - Take Control Of Your Backups!
    Complete Backup Solution For WHM Reseller Accounts

  5. #5
    That's exactly what I was just looking at. I don't know why I never thought of using symlinks. I found a plugin to enable to WordPress provisioning and database setup automatically from WHMCS

    https://secure.insyncbiztech.com/clients/cart.php?gid=9

    It'll need to be modified a bit to install WordPress using symlinks instead of a new installation but that shouldn't be too hard at all.

    Thank for your replies and help. Looking forward to working on this and getting it running. Got a few more things to get finished up with before we move on offering this to our customers, but this will be awsome even just for my own personal websites. Now I'll have 1 WordPress install to update instead of 3!

    EDIT: I see now why you said VPS would be a must... Symlinks on a shared server.....

    thanks again.

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