Multiple Websites / ONE CMS

[cw1865]

I am seeking to implement a system whereby I can maintain one CMS and define content to multiple websites. I think such a system would be very useful to create a lot of content relatively quickly/cheaply, would permit crafting niche websites targeted to slightly less popular products and would overall be a boon by reducing content management time.

Any thoughts on this topic would be appreciated.....

[bobchrist]

I think tridion has such system, possibly you're looking for this; R5

[kgun]

1. May be the best is to get your own dedicated server or grid host. Employ a young clever IT person to take care of the server configuration if that is beyond your time budget. Then configure the domains so you can use the same templates on all domains foccusing on using the three layers of the web. One central place where you link to your style sheets, Java Script code etc. Since all the domains are hosted on the same IP, there may be SEO disadvantages.
2. I use a Danish hoster (nearly instantly upgrading to new versions of PHP - very important because of the way PHP evolves) where I can do the same on a shared IP. That is a second best solution to me as long as I don't need a dedicated server now.

[snowman]

Apologies if you have thought of this already but would Wordpress MU (multi user) help you in this respect. There are plenty of plugins to get your blog looking like a website too.....

Find out more on http://www.mu.wordpress.org

[cw1865]

Any thoughts on Netsuite out there?

[activeco]

NetSuite Small Business Review 2008

[cw1865]

thanks

[arthurakay]

I actually work for a company named Imaginary Landscape, based out of Chicago IL.

We have a CMS designed for exactly this purpose - we named it "Landscaper". Rather than bore you with technical details, I'll just say that we have a number of clients who are large hospital chains in the Chicago metro area who use our CMS and love it.

Check out our website for more info - Chicago Web Design | Chicago Web Developer | Web Design Companies and Services | Imaginary Landscape, LLC: Chicago Web Developer

[jaldridge]

I actually built my own! We're kicking off a community project which will have 100s of separate websites. I built a CMS system that actually manages just one website but the changes are reflected throughout all of them.

It was the only way to do it to get around the problem of solving bugs. Imagine fixing a bug in 500 websites! Ouch. Now we change it once and that's it.

In fact I'm so impressed with the facility that we've created that I might sell it one day!!

[Christiaan]

Find out more on http://www.mu.wordpress.org

This should be:

WordPress MU › Home

No www !

[pebblez]

can wordpress.mu be used on multiple domains? I thought it was a one domain - multiple subdomain kind of thing

[Web Res]

We do a lot of small (low cost) websites for motels and B&B's - in fact about 30 in the last 6 months. They need a couple of pages, integrated maps for location, an image gallery and contact form. We also set them up with google analytics and e-mail.

For these jobs, we use Burgundysky ::: Do It Yourself Websites as it has an in built cms that the customer can later use to add/edit their own pages. It uses templates so they can easily change the look feel as well as all the navigation of new pages is automatically manage as you would expect for any cms.

For me, there's no set up and nothing to install. Create the account and it is all done. The cms is shared within the hosting of all accounts, which means that updates and everythig are automatically maintained for every account by the host. This is really cool because if I install joomla for every new website, then I must go back and fo x times updates if there is an important version update.

From an SEO prospective, the sites are working well. From a look prospective they are pretty nice (you could always do better) and these are really low cost websites.

My income is a set up fee to help them get organized withimages and copy writing. Burgundysky also shares with me 1/3 of the hosting for the lifetime of the customer.

All in all, it has worked very well. Customer is happy and empowered with an outcome that works.

Here are some examples - Website Portfolio - Page 1 ::: Web Reservation Systems Australia

[wpriley]

Consider Drupal (one of the best supported and feature rich open source CMS systems). You can use configure one Drupal installation to support multiple domains.

Here a quick multi-domain Drupal set-up tutorial on About.com: How to Set Up Multiple Sites to Use Drupal CMS.

Good luck.

[powsurfer]

We have just undergone exactly this. I couldn't find anything that had the right amount of flexibility for SEO purposes where we felt we needed to keep total control.

We now have an SQL database which has a CMS for all our clients, populated from enquiry/contact forms on all the websites.

We wanted to be able to manage similar websites without getting duplicate penalties, so for example we have (I hope this makes sense)

Website 1 with Ski Resort A
Website 1 with Ski Resort B etc
In addition to ski resorts we have countries, ski tours and ski packages.

When building Website 2 we have Ski Resort A modified as we can either add a ski resort from new or use an existing record as a template. This way we can change the meta tags exactly as we please, change any information on for each resort such as descriptive paragraphs but leave what is consistent e.g Trail Map location URLs.
We then associate the new item (ski resort/tour/package) with the correct website, country, resort etc.
We can if we wish then have the same tour appearing across all the websites with the layout and design changing each time. We could do this for the resorts and other pages too but not sure how different we could make them for the SEs if only changing the CSS.

As we add more websites we simply use different layouts and designs through the CSS and very similar templates for the dynamic pages.

Also in there we have a currency converter (actually we input the rates we want to use so can therefore include any spread in the FX) and other features that we now just change once for all our websites which in theory can be limitless.

This should also work across websites on different servers providing the websites can access the DB.

[kgun]

The CMS Matrix - cmsmatrix.org - The Content Management Comparison Tool