Do I really need to use Wordpress MU Domain Mapping?

Question

I'm setting up a Wordpress multisite installation for a client, and all the different sites will be under different domains. I set it up using the subdomain option, and a bit of Googling pointed me to the Wordpress MU Domain Mapping plugin to map those subdomains to full domains. However I also noticed that once a new site has been created, if you go to the edit screen, you can specify a full domain. And from a little bit of testing I did, setting this to a completely different domain seems to work.

So do I really need to use the Wordpress MU Domain Mapping plugin? Or is this plugin only useful for sites that need to be mapped to multiple domains & subdomains?

Answer 1

I wasn't able to run WP MU on multiple TLDs without the plugin. so I would say "yes" - if you manage several domains from one WP MU you need to set it up.

Maby someone can confirm this :)

Answer 2

I may be mistaken however this is not recommended by the plugin developer.

The front end will work using this method, but without Domain Mapping correctly setup administration(dashboard) pf the secondary site will not work.

I have also had issues with an endless login loop when trying to access the dashboard on the administrator side of the secondary sites.