Posts versus Pages in WordPress

Orange Pen

WordPress, by default, supports two similar, yet unique, types of content - Posts and Pages. It’s important to understand and distinguish between these two types of content when writing for your blog.

The first type of content is a Post. Most blogs rely primarily on this type of content. Posts are the part of a blog that keeps the site fresh with constantly changing information. Posts tend to be listed on the front page of a blog in reverse chronological order, ie most recent content first. In order to allow filtering of posts categories and tags can be assigned to a post. This allows readers to select a subset of content from the website. Posts also appear in RSS feeds.

Posts are Listed in Reverse Chronological Order
Post listings can be filtered by author, tag, category, date, etc, using the built in WordPress archive linking system
Posts are listed in the RSS Feed for the website

The second type of content generally found on a WordPress blog is a Page. A page is distiguished from a post most often by it’s more static and long term availability. Pages will contain the same types of information that you would find on a traditional, static website.

Pages generally contain content that is intended for long term availability
Pages are NOT included in the RSS Feeds for the website
Pages can be created in a hierarchy with top level pages and sub-pages

When would a Page be used rather than a Post?

Content that will be structured more like a traditional website with a page/sub-page hierarchy
Content that should always be available from every page of your website

Basic Examples of Pages