How To Enable WordPress Multi-Sites Sub Domains on Godaddy

Lots of people who host on Godaddy using WordPress have had trouble enabling sub domains with Multi-Sites and unfortunately the official Godaddy help FAQ for Multi-Sites is a bit limited, here’s another official resource from Godaddy on the WordPress Multi User plugin but neither one completely covers the topic. For the solution and a few helpful tips on how to get Multi-Sites working on a Deluxe Godaddy hosting account keep reading.

There are four parts to this solution (three if you aren’t hosting with deluxe and have wordpress in the root directory)

  1. Purchase a static IP address for your hosting account if you don’t already have one. This costs just a few bucks a month and is necessary to enable wildcard sub domains which we will get to in step three. Purchase it first because it takes a while to propagate.
  2. Enable WordPress Multi-Sites Network option with WordPress 3.0 or greater, do this by adding the following line to your wp-config.php file then following the instructions in your WordPress admin area under Tools > Network. Note that this code can go anywhere in the wp-config file but I chose to put it just below define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”); because it fit nicely there:
    /** Enable Multi-Site options in WordPress. */
    define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);
  3. In the domain manager area of Godaddy click the URL you are working with and click the Total DNS Control link under Total DNS Control. Once the page loads click Add New A Record and enter the following:
    for Host Name type an asterisk, like this: *
    for Points To Ip Address paste in your new static IP Address (you can get this from your hosting control panel under Account Summary)

Everything should work at this point if all of your WordPress files are in the root directory of your server. If you’re like me and are using deluxe hosting with domains setup in folders then you need to take one more step. If you don’t take this last step, any sub domain sites you create in WordPress using Multi-Sites will go to the root directory of your hosting space and users will probably see the “coming soon” Godaddy page or an error page. And so, you will need to manually add sub domains to the URL within Godaddy in addition to within the WordPress interface. This can be done two ways through the hosting account domains section or manually using the same Total DNS Control section as follows.

  • Option 1: Under My Domains choose the URL you want to add a sub domain to (to match what you create in WordPress). In the domain manager under Total DNS choose Add New A Record then for Host Name enter the sub domain you want (ie. enter sub if you want to achieve sub.mydomain.com). For Points To IP Address enter your static IP (Which should be right there from step three above, with the asterisk).
  • Option 2: In your Hosting Control Center click the Your Domains button and then click the Add link for the domain you are working with. Now enter the sub domain you want and navigate to the folder where your site is installed (this is how you help WordPress send users to your site files and not just the empty root directory of your hosting space.

Option 1 Screenshot:

Option 2 Screenshots:

For more great information on WordPress Multi-Sites check out this video overview.

6 comments

  1. hi, nice article, i learn new things, but i still cant install a network in my subdomain (unlimited windows hosting account Godaddy). My question is the next, does anyone knows if the problem is my domain that i get from a foreign provider; i mean, i bough a .org.ps domain with a .ps provider and im using my godaddy unlimited hosting account to host this domain, should i do any extra step to install the multisite in my subdomain.web.org.ps or whats wrong, ive tried almost everything, tks

  2. Hey Ali, there are definitely a lot of steps here to consider. My first recommendation would be to make sure you have a static IP address for the domain and that all the settings are right. Sometimes it can take things a while to propogate… did you just make the changes? You might be best off transferring the domain to Godaddy where you have full DNS control and can follow my steps more closely.

  3. Hey man, thanks a lot! You may add a note. This is not possible to do in a windows server, at least until this day. I had to switch my server to linux, i follow your instructions and boila! it works. Note: thereĀ“s a small mistake in the code, u should use apostrophes, because if someone copy our code, this will not work tks, this is possible!

  4. thanks so much for the share man.

  5. I have the same issues, I have updated dns and created the subdomain also but still mpmu subdomain not working as expected. you can check this sample subdomain http://workfromhome.cmsstores.com

    How much time it will take to propogate the DNS settings? I have updated today.

    Regards
    Sandesh

  6. I think you need to update the screen shot. now godaddy have changed cname edit screen little bit. I have fixed this issue on godaddy now my subdomain working fine http://freelance.cmsstores.com . One more thing while creating subdomain you need to select the “same as subdomain” option as per last screen.