Top 6 Differences Between Post And Page In WordPress

Differences Between Post And Page In WordPress: When I first started using WordPress, I was so confused about posts and pages. Both of them look same, feel same, have more or less the same fields in dashboard. Are there any difference between the two? If not, why have two separate entities?

Two years later, I ask this question ‘what are the differences between posts and pages in WordPress’ to every “experienced” content writer at every interview.

Surprisingly, many of them fail to answer this question despite being in this trade for quite some time.

So, in this article, I will explain the differences between posts and pages in WordPress.

Differences Between Posts And Pages In WordPress

To explain the differences between posts and pages in WordPress, let us first consider a website that has a blog as well. Remember, not all websites are blogs. Blogs have “articles” arranged in reverse chronological order – the latest one being on top. If you want to know the differences between blog and website, read this article.

Now, coming back to what we were talking about, let’s say it’s a website for a company that provides web hosting services. Now, when you land on its homepage, you see the name of the company, its tagline, its vision, and a quote from the CEO. On the top right corner, you see four tabs – Home, Our Services, Blog, About Us and Contact Us.

Check Out The Differences Between Blog And Website Here

We have already explained the home page. The rest of the tabs are self-explanatory:

• “Our Services” lists the various Hosting Plans.
• “About Us” tells about the CEO and other top members of the company and what they are trying to do.
• “Contact Us” has the contact form, phone number and email address.
• “Blog” is the section of the website that has all the articles on topics that are related to building and maintaining blogs/websites.

Now, what are the differences in the content of each of these tabs?

The contents in the home page and first three tabs do not change very frequently. They remain static for most of the time whereas if you go to the Blog section you will see new content every now and then.

That’s the major difference between Post and Page in WordPress.

Top Differences Between Post And Page In WordPress

So, let us now see the major differences between posts and pages in WordPress:

1. Timely Vs Timeless Content

As mentioned above, the major differences between posts and pages in WordPress is in the content. Pages have static content, which are basically timeless content that are not supposed to be changed on a regular basis. For example, the content of the “About Us” or “Contact Us” tabs from the above example are not supposed to change frequently. Of course, you can do that but that doesn’t make sense. These things are supposed to remain static unless some major changes happen in the organization. That is why pages do not have a publish date.

Posts on the other hand has a publish date. The content of the posts are timely. It is for this reason blog articles, which are posts, are arranged in the reverse chronological order – the latest ones on top. They have a publish date because the content here are relevant to the time they are published. As per the need of the hour, you can change the content or even discard them altogether.

2. Categorical Vs Hierarchical

Posts need to be organized in a manner that it becomes easy for readers to find them. As posts are timely and arranged in reverse chronological order, the older posts are at the bottom which makes it difficult for readers to find them. This is where “Categories” and “Tags” come to the picture.

WordPress Categories and WordPress Tags are two built-in WordPress taxonomies that help in organizing your posts. You can add your posts to a particular category and also add tags to it. Clicking on the category name or tag name will show all the posts that belong to that particular category or to which that particular tag was added.

For example, if readers of Blogsperia wants to read all the articles that I have written about SEO, they don’t have to dig deep into my blog. They just have to click on the category name SEO.

Pages on the other hand are hierarchical. That is, there can be a parent page and within it, there can be child pages. Taking the example website from above, if the parent page is examplewebhosting.com/services, the child page can be examplewebhosting.com/services/premiumplan.

3. Social Vs Not Social

Since posts are timely, users have a tendency to share them on social media. Users can also start conversation about the topic of the posts. That is why, posts usually have social sharing options and comment section.

Pages are timeless and hence, are not something that people will share or discuss about.

4. Authored Vs Not

Posts usually have a public author. Users can simply click on the name of the author and all the posts written by that particular author will be displayed on the screen.

But the content of your About Us page is not something that needs the name of the writer to be displayed.

5. RSS Feed Vs Not

The RSS Feed lets readers know about latest updates in the content. Since posts have timely content associated with a date, this means users might be interested to know the latest content or updates and hence, posts are included in RSS Feed. That’s not the case with pages which have timeless content.

6. Custom Template Vs Not

Depending upon the content (like audio, video, quote, image, etc.), you can stylize your posts – the way they are going to look. That is, posts have the feature to customize the template. Most of the WordPress themes do not support this feature for pages.

These are the top differences between Post and Page in WordPress. If you have any confusion pertaining to differences between Post and Page in WordPress, ask them below. I will respond at the earliest.