What is a WordPress Multisite?

A network of websites that uses the same WordPress installation - core files, database, themes and plugins.  Run from a central dashboard, but with the ability to create and manage websites individually, the overall management and maintenance of the system is streamlined and very efficient.   

A multisite is ideal if the websites within it are for the same organisation or their representatives. They are especially useful where the cost of setting up and managing separate but similar website installations is prohibitive.

If your websites are for completely different organisations, have very different purposes, or have specific technical or legal requirements, you should consider separate installations for each website. 

Speeding up your website became even more important – now it matters to Google as well as your visitors.

Google likes to keep the website owner on their toes, making changes to their ranking algorithms which we have to respond to if we want to keep good rankings for our website. Google’s new update is called “Page Experience” and is made up of “Core Web Vitals”, or basically how fast your web page loads for a visitor.

In truth these changes are about making the internet a better overall experience for all its users. For a long while Google has been encouraging faster loading websites, and canny website owners have already adapted. But going live on Google right now are the changes which make this pretty much compulsory, and start pushing slow loading websites, and others with poor user experience, down the rankings.

If you are running WordPress websites you probably already know about the exceptional value for money they offer (the code is free, hosting so reasonably priced), when compared to any enterprise CMS system. 

You probably know too about the flexibility that the huge community of plugins that make WordPress (and comparable Open Source platforms Joomla and Drupal), the most flexible that there are.  After all, where else can you get hundreds of popular shopping carts, community forums, calendars, or galleries, all completely free of charge?

But despite its benefits even a WordPress site is not a free pass – you still need to look after it like a responsible web citizen, if you want to provide your customers with an exceptional user experience.