Moving S2Member to a different domain.

I bought the Pro version single site license. I’ve been studying and experimenting with it for the past week or so and so far I’m extremely impressed.

One thing i want to do is have a general “public” website and then the member portal. I own the .COM, .NET, .ORG, and .INFO versions of the domain. Right now I’ve installed S2Memeber on the .COM domain with the general/public website.

I’m now having second thoughts about this. First, the primary navigation bar for the public site should be different than the membership portal. Second, I’m concerned with putting this much load on a shared server site having both sites combined in the same MYSQL database.

So I’m considering putting the membership portal on the .ORG domain and have it completely independent (or maybe a “member” subdomain?). Both ideas provide an independent WP install and MYSQL database.

So my first question is how do you feel about my idea? Am I overly concerned with having the public and membership sites combined? Should I just modify the StudioPress theme to allow different navigation/menu bars? Or is keeping these sites independent a good idea? If so, do you think the .ORG idea is better than using a subdomain?

My second question is, can I move the .COM install to the .ORG domain. I use BackupBuddy by iThemes that does an incredible job of migrating sites to new domains but I’m not sure how well that will work with S2Member. Otherwise I can just reinstall and redo what I’ve done.

The third question is how this affects my license since I set S2Member to verify to the .COM. Can we move the license to the .ORG since I’m still playing around with the plugin?

Thanks for any help you can give. I have a feeling that I’ll be a regular in this forum. LOL

Bruce,

• This topic was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by  Bruce Walker.

So my first question is how do you feel about my idea? Am I overly concerned with having the public and membership sites combined? Should I just modify the StudioPress theme to allow different navigation/menu bars? Or is keeping these sites independent a good idea? If so, do you think the .ORG idea is better than using a subdomain?

Bruce I’m not sure I really understand you it sounds like your trying to complicate something that doesn’t need to be.

Can you not just have 1 website with 1 installation and just have a members only section? So yes just modify the navigation/menu bars depending on whether the user is logged in/member etc

And I would advise just keeping everything .com

Thank you for responding.

Actually I’m trying to simplify things. Apart from the navigation which isn’t a big issue and is easily handled with about 10 lines of PHP code, there’s still other issues to consider such as the “blog roll”.

The blog roll for the public section will be different than the blog roll for the members section. Though I can control the visibility of posts so that non-members don’t see certain content, there will be content in the public area that the members won’t care about and should be hidden in the members area. Of course some more PHP code and maybe custom fields or categories could filter these.

The public area most likely will use plugins that the member site wouldn’t need. And obviously, the member site will have S2Member, BuddyPress, etc which the public side doesn’t need. So I see a lot of unnecessary overhead on both sides of this.

The public side needs to be indexed in the search engines. The member side won’t be visible to the search engines. Heck, I’d love to just hide the membership side altogether (maybe avoid a few hackers).

I may not want an employee that works on the public side messing around with S2Member, the forum, etc.

Down the road, I may have to take down the member side for some major upgrade but would want to keep the public side up and running (and vise versa).

No matter how you stack it I’ll be conceptually maintaining two sides of this thing – public and member. I was just wondering if splitting the two entities would reduce system load, add flexibility, and keep things a bit cleaner.

Though I’ve been a software developer for 25 years, this is my first membership site. And of course I’m new to S2Member. So I’m definitely open to suggestions.

Bruce,

Bruce,

I do see what you mean but I do think that by taking that approach you will end up with a net increase in server load and in work generally.
I’ve heard there are plugins that you can use to stop other plugins loading when not needed, so that may be worth looking at.

Indeed I think that just by categorizing posts and using s2member you will be able to filter them for public/member scenarios.

I don’t know why you would ever need to take either site down for upgrade wouldn’t that just be a case of uploading a new theme/plugin and its done?

As for some one else working on your site you can assign roles to allow/prevent them from doing certain things.

If you do decide to have two separate sites then I would look at using WordPress MU which would allow you to do all those things and make your life easier and give good performance by allowing you to use the same install and themes across multiple sites, actually thinking about it this may be your best option listening to your ideas.

Hope that helps

Hi Bruce.

It’s fine if you want to have two separate WordPress installations. Normally, it’s simpler to keep everything in one and just segment the content, but in your case, with the things you mentioned, you’ll probably do better with two installations. Not multisite, because that’s really a single installation with separate front ends.

The server load may be the similar, no significant difference there.

I bought the Pro version single site license. I’ve been studying and experimenting with it for the past week or so and so far I’m extremely impressed.

Thanks for the kudos! :)

Right now I have S2member Pro installed on the .COM domain along with everything else. If I decide to split this into two sites, will moving S2Member Pro to the .ORG domain be a problem with the single license? Anything special I need to be aware of?

I’ll most likely just do a clean install to keep things simple. But I don’t want to create problems with the license.

Thanks,

Bruce,

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by  Bruce Walker.

No, it’s not a problem to move it to another domain, as long as you use it in just one installation, then the Single Site license is enough. If you decide to use s2Member Pro in more than one installation, you’ll need to upgrade to the Unlimited Sites license (in your Account page you’ll find a link for this, so you only pay the difference).

I hope that helps. :)

Yes, very helpful. Thank you!

Bruce,

Cool. :)

Hey Cristián, whiile I have your attention,

I’m still shopping around for a helpdesk/support system to integrate into S2Member. Any suggestions?

Also, I’m strongly leaning towards BuddyPress and doing customization on the forum module (bbPress). Is there anyone you can suggest that I can hire that really knows BuddyPress inside-out?

Bruce,

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by  Bruce Walker.

Hmm… Maybe the guys at BuddyBoss.com, or try for freelancers in the BuddyPress.org community.

For support we aren’t using a helpdesk. I’ve heard good things about ZenDesk, but doesn’t integrate with WordPress, requires a separate login. Heard good things about Kayako Fusion, too, don’t know if there’s an integration with WordPress. In the end we chose to use the forum for support, as we had been doing all along.