It’s already sunday. But unlike the Lord, who rested, here we are, with the series “WordPress basics for the weekend”, well, that’s what you asked me for 😉
Yesterday I was asking if there is something more basic in WordPress than categories and tags. You are right. Posts and pages. Let’s see their main differences.
Posts in WordPress
Let’s start with the entries, also called “posts” or “articles”. And we do not start with those just because, but with a historical theme. And it is that originally, WordPress only had posts. She had nothing else. The pages didn’t even exist. Let’s remember that when WorPress started, it was just for blogging. That has obviously changed a lot since then!
The first difference between entries and pages is that the entries are dated. Don’t get me wrong, pages can also have a date, but it doesn’t show on them (although it is technically possible to do so). The important thing here is the concept. The entries are time sensitive, since they are usually articles or news that may become obsolete over time.
For example, if we have a corporate page for our company and we publish a story saying that we will be present at a fair in the sector, it is normal to place it in an entry, since that information will be interesting and valid only for a while. The same would happen with the launch of a product, or if we write about the news in the sector.
Another big difference between the posts and the pages is that the posts can be organized by , which is exactly what we were talking about in yesterday’s post. One more time: Categories and tags in WordPress only affect posts.
Regarding the formats and design, the entries can enjoy the WordPress format system, which allows you to choose different types of design depending on the type of content of that entry.
Another key difference is that the posts automatically appear in the WordPress feed. This means that people who subscribe to your website will be able to see the new posts as they are published, while that does not happen with the pages. This point is VERY important if you have a lot of subscribers.
Finally, another curious detail is that an entry cannot be set as the homepage. Be careful, make no mistake… we can make sure that only one entry is visible on the homepage, but it will always be the last one we have written. What we cannot do is that an input (post, article) Specifically, it is the homepage. Obviously we could create a plugin to make it possible, but in any case it cannot be done with “stock” WordPress.
Pages in WordPress
Although WordPress was born in 2003, it wasn’t until February 2005 that the pages were added. Until then, people had to use posts as pages… you can imagine what a botch was done at that time.
The fact is that the pages appeared, and that opened a world of new possibilities to all WordPress users, since now they could add content that did not depend on the date, that was “static”, if you will. “Fixed” sections that did not become obsolete over time.
Returning to our example of the corporate website, a typical page could be the “Contact” page, where there is usually a contact form, sometimes along with other information, such as the telephone number, the physical address of the company, or even a google map. That information is “almost” permanent. And I say “almost” because in this world there is nothing permanent. Obviously, you can change your phone or address, but it is rare. Other typical pages are those of “About us”, “Services”, “Products” or even “Our team”. Information lasting in time, not linked to a date.
Another point, as we have already mentioned, is that pages cannot be arranged by categories and tags. That’s just for tickets. But in exchange, they have another interesting form of organization. And it is that they are hierarchical. That means that you can create subpages, which depend on other pages.
For example, going back to our example, we could create an “Our Team” page and have each staff member have their own page with their resume and job description. That at the URL level would look like this:
- http://mycompany.com/equipment
- http://mycompany.com/equipment/so and so
So, we can see that even in the URL structure the hierarchy is clear. In this case, in blue we see the “Team” page, where there will be a list of personnel, and in green, the “So-and-so” subpage, which depends on the “Team” page, which will have information about that employee.
At the format and design level, the pages do not have “formats” as in the case of entries, but rather have a “template” system, which will allow us to create and choose different types of templates to use for each particular page:
Another difference, as we have said before, is at the level of feeds or RSS. Unlike inputs, the pages do not appear in the feed of our website. Obviously we can modify this with plugins or code, but that is not the usual behavior.
Finally, one last detail is that any page can easily become the initial page of our website, that is, the homepage. Let’s remember that By default WordPress shows the latest posts on our home page. But it can be easily changed, we just have to go to “Settings / Reading” and select “A static page” in the “Front page shows” option.
If we do it like this, we should also indicate which page we want to contain the entries, because if they are not on the homepage, they must appear somewhere, right? For that, it is best to create a page called “blog” and select it in the “Entries page” option, as we see in the image. And don’t worry about filling in or writing anything on that page, it won’t show up, since WordPress will replace it, no matter what, to place the latest entries.
Shift summary and conclusion
The entries are for news, articles and information linked to a date that we can classify with categories and labels, while the pages are almost perennial information, which is organized hierarchically and can be used as the home page.
And as always, I have made you an even more visual summary, here it goes:
Well, I hope this article (not page) You find it useful, and that you have managed to clarify concepts or discover some new ones 🙂
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