Learn the Difference Between Posts and Pages in WordPress

November 4, 2016 | General

Have you ever wondered “What is the difference between WordPress posts and pages?” Don’t worry you’re not alone, the differences are subtle and can be a little tricky to understand. I mean they both essentially do the same thing right? Well.. yes and no.

By default, both posts and pages allow you to do many of the same things. Such as adding and editing: titles, content, authors, links, featured images, custom fields, and more. But, that’s about where those similarities end however. Pages are meant to be stand alone items, whereas posts are not. Pages only allow you to show one page at a time. Whereas posts can be pulled INTO pages to allow you to show a laundry list of different posts at one time.

Posts give you the option to either tag or categorize them. This is so you can filter your post into lists. For example, suppose you run a cooking website. And you’re adding recipes. By adding each recipe as a post, rather than a page, you’re able to categorize them for sorting later. You might have categories like breakfast, lunch, dinner, & dessert. You can then filter your posts to show a visitor only recipes for breakfast, for example. You’re also able to tag posts with multiple tags or categories. This is helpful when you may have an item, say a recipe, that could fall into two categories. For instance, say a breakfast item that is also a dessert; such as donuts, fruit parfaits, or chocolate chip pancakes.. Yum!

Something else to note. While posts and pages both have publish dates, the dates matter more for posts. If you sort, or query (WordPress term), a list of posts, they display in descending order starting with the most recent post on top. But you can also choose to sort your posts by name, ID, author, menu order, date, etc. And you can also choose whether to list them in ascending or descending order. For example, if you list your posts by name in ascending order. They will sort with A’s first, then B’s, C’s, and so on. For a full list of ways posts can be sorted visit the WordPress codex here!

Still confused about posts and pages? Post your questions in the comments below and I will do my best to answer them!