Thread: Using subdomains and ClassiPress

Using subdomains and ClassiPress

Although this issue has been brought up several times in other forum posts, I can't quite find the answer to my specific question. It will be a bit involved, so I want to say now that I highly appreciate each and every response I get. Here it goes:

I downloaded WordPress and activated the Multisite feature. Currently, the theme (and WordPress) is installed on my main domain, "www.mysite.com". Now I'm conflicted as to what my next move should be. My site architecture should work as follows. "www.mysite.com" should direct to a nice and simple page with a search bar feature (This page should not utilize the ClassiPress theme). In this search bar, the user will type his/her university name. As they type, the options will narrow down to their choice. Once they click on their choice, they will be directed to a subdomain. For example, if his/her school is Harvard University, they will be directed to "harvard.mysite.com". Each school site (thus, each subdomain) will contain UNIQUE classified listings, but will utilize the same features of my ClassiPress setup, except for one thing: Each school site will include the name of the school and a link back to "www.mysite.com" in case they want to browse the listings of a different school by navigating to a different subdomain (using the search feature on "www.mysite.com"). How should I go about accomplishing this task so that I make the most efficient use of the databases? I suppose that if I had separate databases for each site there wouldn't be an issue since each site should have unique listings (forgive me as I have very little knowledge of how this all works). How would I do this? Can I use WordPress's multisite feature to simply make a subdomain for each school and install the theme for each?

Now that I think about it, if each school's site had a text box indicating which school was currently being browsed, I suppose this would be the only unique element (besides the listings, of course) amongst all the sites. Aghhh, any advice is greatly appreciated!

Btw, I'm new to WordPress and making websites in general, if that's not already obvious.

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