Set up microsites in Sitecore 8.1

Question

We have to set up 70+ micro-sites in Sitecore so looking for best approach for long run. We already have 3 sites on production on single Sitecore instance i.e. we did multi-site implementation. See below tree structure in Content Editor

Site1
--Home //Keep all content/pages
--SiteData //Keep common content/navigation menu content
--SiteSettings //Keep setting specific to site
Site2
--Home
--SiteData
--SiteSettings
Site3
--Home
--SiteData
--SiteSettings

Now to set up 70+ microsite here is the options

Option 1 I will keep continue adding new site node below Site3 for ex: Site4(Home,SiteData,SiteSettings) , Site5(Home,SiteData,SiteSettings),Site6(Home,SiteData,SiteSettings) and so on I'm not sure if this is the best approach because finally we will end up having lots of site node in tree structure

Option 2 I will set up only one sitenode below Site3 called Microsite but in this approach not sure how would I maintain each microsite specific navigation menu and content as well.

Which one is best approach from above or there is any other way we can handle this set up

UPDATE 03/28

The Urls for sites will be

microsite.mysite.com/company1
microsite.mysite.com/company2
microsite.mysite.com/company3
and so on

Answer 1

I would go with Option 1 because of the following reasons:

1. Security and User Access on items are much easier to handle than have a single site node. If you have different teams working on different sites, you may create roles that are based on the Site node and assign accordingly to the different users.

2. Having different site nodes allows for maintainability and extensibility as each site will have its own content.

3. If tomorrow you have multiple items that are shared across the different sites, you may create a container which is shared across all the sites.

Also, depending on the different sites that you have, you may also break it into clusters. For example, among the 70 microsites, you may break it by Regions:

• Europe
• EMEA
• NALA (North America and Latam)

which makes the content tree looks like:

-Europe
    |-- Site UK
    |-- Site FR
    |-- Site DE
-EMEA
    |- Site JP
    |- Site TW
-NALA
    |- Site US
    |- Site BR
    |- Site CA
    |- Site AR

UPDATE

Since you will have the same domain, you can make use of the virtualFolder and physicalFolder.

So, it will looks as follows in the sitedefinition.config:

hostName="microsite.mysite.com"
virtualFolder="/company1"
physicalFolder="/company1"
rootPath="/sitecore/content/Site/Microsite1"

hostName="microsite.mysite.com"
virtualFolder="/company2"
physicalFolder="/company2"
rootPath="/sitecore/content/Site/Microsite2"

More info can be found on my post here

Answer 2

You do not need to have your site definitions all at the same level. You can do any amount of grouping with subfolders to create an easier navigation for somebody to find the site your are looking for.

I agree that 70 sites all at the route is very difficult to navigate. Some might complain about going through a tree structure, but I'm a folder guy and I like to keep things in neat little folders so that I can drill down to the one I want (or search if I'm feeling lazy).

How you group will depend on what makes the most sense for the content/audience of your sites. Should you group by region, industry, target audience? What will help your authors know where to find the site? What grouping makes sense?

In the end, a structure such as this helps you have fewer nodes at each level:

• Microsites
  • Industry1 (e.g.Hotel)
    • Region1
      • Site1
      • Site3
    • Region2
  • Industry2 (e.g Finance)
    • Region1
    • Site2