How best to handle on-site blogs for multiple site views in Magento?

[ExtraDigital]

Hi,

I'm working with a site on Magento with views for UK, US and FR websites. Currently they have a French WordPress Blog that is pulled into the French site view and an English one that appears on both the US and UK views.

Of course the problem here is that the US and UK views are duplicating content so these needs sorting super-fast.

The plan is to disconnect the US view from the current English blog and create a dedicated US onsite blog. However, should we continue to use WordPress or instead use an alternative blog module or plugin for Magento?

Cost is an issue and running three separate blogs and the cost of plugging these into each site view. However, getting these right for SEO is the most important factor here. I'm also concerned about the mess of multiple plugins causing page speed issues etc...

My instinct is to go with WordPress, but I'm keen to hear what others think or have experience of.

[LynnPatchett]

Hi,

If wordpress is working for you already I don't see any reason to change that for the US site (using a different blog software for that site might introduce development or update issues in the future - better in my opinion to stick to one platform and know it well). Site speed should not be a problem as long as your server / coding setup is solid. If the time costs of maintaining the US blog is difficult you could alternatively rel canonical it to the UK blog which would help the duplicate content issue but of course not give any specific SEO value to the US site - it depends on what your aim is with the blog on each view and if you have the resources to support all the blogs or need to focus on properly supporting less of them until such time as resources become available

[evolvingSEO]

I think WordPress Multi-site is your answer - here's a few resources:

http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/ultimate-guide-multisite/

http://mashable.com/2012/07/26/beginner-guide-wordpress-multisite/#Z2BAvs7t.Eq1

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/the-complete-guide-to-creating-a-wordpress-multisite-installation

I believe this should allow you to maintain consistent plugins / settings etc across multiple sites.