This FAQ provides quick and clear answers to the commonest WordPress MU questions!

For more detailed information refer to our comprehensive WPMU Beginners Manual!

What is WordPress MU?

WordPress MU (WPMU) lets you run unlimited blogs on one installation on the same domain.  It’s ideal for those who want to run multiple blogs or offer blog hosting services to others.

WordPress.com and Edublogs.org are examples of large blog networks that use WordPress MU.

Hosting several blogs on the same domain using WordPress MU, instead of installing new blogs each time means all the blogs run off one install.

The benefits of this include:

  1. You only need to update one install when new versions of WordPress MU, plugins or themes are released
  2. You can manage all the blogs in one place;  easily managing, controlling and accessing all blogs and users on the one install
  3. It’s familiar to many of your users as it’s admin panel is fairly similar to a standard WordPress blog admin panel
  4. Each user can have more than one blog (or none) and easily navigate to each of their blogs from within their admin panel

How Do I Host My WordPress MU?

The simplest option is to use a web hosting service as this is often more cost efficient and easier.  Setting up your own server for a ‘beginner’ can result in a lot of frustration.

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How Do You Install WordPress MU?

Installing WordPress MU is as simple as:

Step 1Set up MySQL Database and User for your WPMU install

Step 2 Use a FTP Client to install WordPress MU

Step 3 Change permissions on your public_html and wp-content directories and delete .htaccess

Step 4 Set up sub-domain or sub-directory, database connection details and site email address

Step 5 Reset permissions on your public_html and wp-content directories

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What Do I Need To Know About WordPress MU Themes?

Your WordPress MU comes with three default themes installed.

To extend available themes you’ll need to install extra themes on your site.

Not all themes that work on WordPress work well with WPMU. When choosing a good WPMU theme would want to look for features such as:

  • No code edits
  • Customizability
  • Simplicity of use

Any themes downloaded from sites other than Premium themes should be thoroughly tested by uploading each theme to your WPMU site, and enabling it just for a test account. Activate the theme on the test blog taking notes of any errors which occur. Only enable the theme site-wide once you have fixed them all issues with the theme.

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How Do I change languages of my WordPress MU install?

While U.S English is the default display language for WordPress the software has the built in capacity to be used in any language. This is done by installing the .mo languages translation files in a languages folder in wp-content.

Easiest method is to install Premium’s Languages for WordPress MU – contains 36 different languages for WordPress MU that have been collated and edited for easy use.

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What Regular Plugins Can You Use on WordPress MU?

Regular plugins are located in the “plugins” folder; they can be activated and deactivated on a per-blog level inside your blog dashboard via the Plugins page.

While there are over 4,000 regular plugins most of these don’t work on WordPress MU.

While there’s Plugin functionality which allows you to search and install plugins from within your dashboard it’s best practice to manually install all regular plugins.

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How Do mu-plugins work?

Mu-plugins, on the other hand, are the plugins located in the “mu-plugins” folder; these are activated by default affecting all blogs on the installation.

Always check the ‘compatible with’ section in the box on the right side of  each plugin page (refer to Supporter plugin page as an example)

Checking Compatibility

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