Hello World!, the standard post on a new WordPress site. I have explored several ways to set up this blog both in English (harryonline.net) and in Dutch (harryonline.nl). Read how it has worked out.
I did not want to put the blog in the root folder, as there are more sites hosted on the same account. However, the current server setup (cPanel) requires the www subdomain to be in the root folder. The solution is to use an Apache rewrite, as described in several places, e.g. in the WordPress forums.
For ease of maintenance, both versions of the blog should be on the same WordPress installation. This is also well described in the Codex WordPress documentation. I ran into problems doing this using the www subdomain and the Apache rewrite, so I had to use a special subdomain for this, and set the WordPress folder as the root folder for that subdomain.
However, the multi site setup assumes that all blogs have the same domain, with different subdomains for each blog–just as on wordpress.com. As I used different top level domains, that would not work. This issue has been solved with the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin.
So, it finally worked, but a bit of a complex solution. While browsing for a theme I liked, I ran into the Roots theme, and there I found a link to the WPML plugin. That was a much easier solution, and offered some additional good options, such as a language switcher, and an easy way to translate items. Quite happy now.
Any better suggestions, similar experiences to share, or questions? Please comment.
This post is also available in: Dutch