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The first step to build an alternative to Shopify or similar platforms using WordPress is to create a WP Multisite network that uses subdomains.
You can do this from scratch, or you can turn your normal WordPress installation into a WP Multisite installation.
What is a WP Multisite network?
A WordPress Multisite network allows you to have several websites using the same WordPress resources.
This means you can have thousands of websites using the same WordPress installation, and thus using the same WordPress plugins, the same WordPress themes, hosted on the same server.
This is very handy for a platform because it’s easier to manage all the websites from the same dashboard on one WordPress installation.
How to create a WP Multisite network
There are two options to create a WP Multisite network.
Note – We won’t show you step by step how to do this, since it will all depend on your hosting provider. It also depends on the software you use to create a new WordPress installation.
First, you can create it from scratch.
When creating a new WordPress installation, make sure you enable the “Multisite” feature.
Second, you can turn your simple WordPress installation into a WP Multisite installation that uses subdomains.
Follow these steps:
1- Open your wp-config.php file.
2- Find the following line reading /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */
3- Add these lines of code above that line:
define( 'MULTISITE', true );
define( 'SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true );
define( 'DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE', 'yourdomain.com' );
define( 'PATH_CURRENT_SITE', '/' );
define( 'SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );
define( 'BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE', 1 );
Here’s a video we recommend from our friends at Elementor on how to create a multisite on WordPress to manage multiple sites:
You can also click here to find similar videos on YouTube.
Here’s a tutorial on how to create a multisite network.
Edit your “htaccess” file
Make sure your “.htaccess” file has these values:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
# add a trailing slash to /wp-admin
RewriteRule ^wp-admin$ wp-admin/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(wp-(content|admin|includes).*) $1 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*\.php)$ $1 [L]
RewriteRule . index.php [L]In the next lesson, we’ll see which plugins you need to build a multi-shops platform with WordPress.
Download the whole platform
If you have a premium license of WP Frontend Admin, you can download the full backup of our platform and import it on your site, so everything shown in this course will be already configured for you. It will save you a lot of time.
Note – You need WP Ultimo 2.x.