Might be a silly question but does anyone know if I purchased some web hosting specifically for a WordPress blog could I have more than one blog on the same hosting and domain? All the blogs will be for the same company but different areas of the company so will all need to be branded different with completely separate posts. The idea is to purchase one domain and one hosting package with different folders containing different blogs. Ie www.domain.co.uk/blog1/ (with its own branding in blue with its own posts) www.domain.co.uk/blog2/ (with its own branding in green with its own posts) www.domain.co.uk/blog3/ (with its own branding in orange with its own posts) www.domain.co.uk/blog4/ (with its own branding in purple with its own posts)

Is this possible with WordPress or do you need the same branding and design across all of WordPress? Hope that makes sense

You can make as many WP installs if you want and all different designs. You can even make different designs and let different installs pull the same info.

Thanks for that

you can set up as many as you want in different directories and use the same database. When you install it gives you the option to choose the table prefixes and you will need to use different prefixes for the different blogs:

firstblog_ secblog_ thirblog_

etc

Cheers swampy. Can I still use different designs on the different directories if I do it that way?

yep

Cheers for the advice guys but it seems that's a no go now. The SEO guy has told my client each blog has to be on it's own website's domain as the only reason they are having a blog is for SEO reasons. Is there any way to have a blog hosted elsewhere different to the main website but have it under the same domain name?

I'm probably being thick but I've never used sub domains or needed two hosting providers so no idea if it is possible??

Is there any way to have a blog hosted elsewhere different to the main website but have it under the same domain name?

Not without using subdomains.

Would a subdomain still have the desired effect regarding SEO and does every domain have the option of having subdomains?

Also - the way I would approach this is to get subdomains set up so that the URLs are more like

department1.company.co.uk

departmnet2.company.co.uk

etc - just easier for the users. The hosting company will set it up.

Edit - doh! Should refresh before posting, my response should have come after swampy's

Would a subdomain still have the desired effect regarding SEO

As far as I'm aware, it would in effect be its own domain so its SEO ranking would be unrelated to that of the 'primary' domain. So foo.com would be regarded as unrelated to blog.foo.com for SEO purposes. I'm no expert on that score, though.

// EDIT: It doesn't seem to be cut-and-dried. Here's a page which tries to address the question: http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/multiple-domains-vs-subdomains-vs-folders-in-seo/

does every domain have the option of having subdomains?

Technically yes, but whether the webhost that is currently hosting the primary domain enables them is another matter. I'd be surprised if they don't, though.

The hosting company will have their own way of setting up subdomains, but actually you can fake it using .htaccess

Best to ask your hosting how they suggest doing it, if they are unwilling we'll take you down the "faking with .htaccess" method.

deleted duplicate.

I suck at teh internets today.

Would a subdomain still have the desired effect regarding SEO

It doesn't seem to be cut-and-dried.

Here's are some pages which try to address the question: http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/multiple-domains-vs-subdomains-vs-folders-in-seo/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/subdomains-or-subfolders-which-are-better-for-seo/6849/

http://searchengineland.com/how-changes-to-the-way-google-handles-subdomains-impact-seo-12899

So...the answer is 'maybe'

My life was so much simpler before they got an SEO person in

spam

//ari