Word Press Question 3 Databases, 3 installs

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Word Press Question 3 Databases, 3 installs

Can one Word Press Install access 3 databases

craigmn3

5:07 pm on Oct 5, 2020 (gmt 0)

Working on an old site, and I am not sure why but the site has three word press installs for the same domain
1. Main Site www.domain.tld
2. Blog Info Site www.domain.tld/blog/
3. Ecommerce Site: www.domain/tld/market

All three sites are keyed to the same domain, have the same design and google treats them as if they are the same site (in analytics and search console)

Questions:
1. Is there any harm (besides updating 3 site designs instead of one)
2. Is there any benefit to this system?
3 Is there anyway of accessing all three databases from one Word Press install. (I am loathe to merge the databases because it is a successful site) and I would need to keep the url structure intact

not2easy

6:34 pm on Oct 5, 2020 (gmt 0)

No, don't merge the databases, it does not save you any work of updating the three installs and would quite likely slow down the site a lot - if it would even be possible, since that would change the URLs.

I don't see any way to have three separate installs with separate functions all running off one database since the URL 'Permalink' structure is set separately in each install. The old thing about "if it ain't broke" comes to mind here.

It could well be that they have a good reason for the 3 installations, especially if they each address a different aspect of the business. Separating the 3 installs allows for possibly different settings, structures permissions and sitemaps for each directory, but plugins and css may not be identical across all three and with 3 installs you can have variations in your permalink and menu structure that you cannot have with one install.

tangor

8:38 pm on Oct 6, 2020 (gmt 0)

The "why there's three" might have to do with WP database limitations AND on the frequency of ordinary housekeeping (database cleanup and reductions). Site will have benefit of faster loads across the board and maintenance levels will be reduced to the MOST necessary requirements.

As not2easy notes, you will get ZERO benefit in combining three-to-one and MIGHT increase your need to run database utilities more often than you'd like.