From Zero to Live: Setting Up Your First Child Site on Dependent Media

Getting Started with Child Sites

Launching a child site within the Dependent Media ecosystem is a straightforward process once you understand how the pieces fit together. Whether you’re spinning up a location-specific microsite or a brand sub-property, the workflow follows a consistent pattern: configure the domain, inherit the right theme, and dial in your initial settings. Let’s walk through it step by step.

Step 1: Domain Configuration

Before anything else, your domain needs to point to the right place. If you’re working with a subdomain (like newsite.yourdomain.com), create a CNAME or A record in your DNS settings that resolves to the Dependent Media server. Allow up to 48 hours for full propagation, though it often resolves much faster.

Once DNS is in order, add the domain inside your network settings. Navigate to your Network Admin dashboard and map the domain to the new site. Dependent Media’s multi-site architecture handles the routing from there — think of it like drawing up a play on the whiteboard before the snap. Get the assignment right upfront and everyone knows where to go.

Step 2: Creating the Child Site

Inside the Network Admin, go to Sites > Add New. Fill in the site address, title, and admin email. Once created, the site exists as its own unit within the network — isolated enough to operate independently, but connected enough to share resources with the parent.

A few things worth double-checking at this stage:

• Confirm the site URL matches your mapped domain exactly
• Assign the correct administrator account
• Set the site language to match your audience

Step 3: Theme Inheritance

One of the real advantages of working within Dependent Media’s ecosystem is theme inheritance. Rather than rebuilding a design from scratch, child sites can pull from a network-activated parent theme. This keeps branding consistent across properties while still giving you room to customize at the child level.

To enable a theme for your child site, a network administrator must first activate it network-wide. Once active, you can select it from the child site’s Appearance panel. From there, a child theme — if configured — will layer its own styles and template overrides on top of the parent, giving you flexibility without losing the foundation.

If you’re building the child theme yourself, make sure your style.css references the parent theme correctly in the Template header field. That single line is the handoff — miss it and the inheritance breaks.

Step 4: Initial Settings to Configure

With the domain live and the theme in place, run through these core settings before you consider the site ready:

• Reading settings: Decide whether the homepage shows your latest posts or a static page. Set this early — it affects how crawlers and visitors first experience the site.
• Permalink structure: Choose a clean URL format (post name is a solid default) and save it to flush rewrite rules.
• Discussion settings: Turn comments on or off depending on the site’s purpose.
• User roles: Assign appropriate roles to anyone who needs access. Not everyone needs to be an administrator.

Step 5: Pre-Launch Check

Before you call it live, do a quick walkthrough. Load the site in a private browser window to see it as a visitor would. Check that the theme renders correctly, navigation is in place, and any shared plugins activated at the network level are functioning as expected.

Think of this like a final walk-through of the field before game day — you want to catch anything out of place while you still have time to fix it.

You’re Live

Setting up a child site on Dependent Media doesn’t require a complicated process — just a clear sequence of steps executed in the right order. Nail the domain configuration, let theme inheritance do the heavy lifting, and get your settings dialed in before you open the doors. From there, the site is yours to build on.