Often WordPress beginners get confused between posts and pages. By default, WordPress comes with two content types: posts and pages.
As a beginner, you are probably wondering what’s the difference between posts vs pages? They seem to look similar in the WordPress dashboard as well as on the website.
Readers often ask us: Why do I need both? When should I use posts? When should I use pages?
In this article, we will explain the difference between posts vs. pages in WordPress.
What are Posts in WordPress?
Posts are blog content listed in a reverse chronological order (newest content on top). You will see posts listed on your blog page.
If you are using WordPress as a blog, then you will end up using posts for the majority of your website’s content.
You can add and edit your WordPress posts from the ‘Posts’ menu in your dashboard. Here is how Add New Post screen looks.
Due to their reverse chronological order, your posts are meant to be timely. Older posts are archived based on month and year.
As the posts gets older, the user has to dig deeper to find them. You have the option to organize your posts based on categories and tags.
Because WordPress posts are published with time and date in mind, they are syndicated through the RSS feeds. This allows your readers to be notified of the most recent post update via RSS feeds.
Bloggers can use the RSS feeds to deliver email broadcasts through services like Constant Contact, Aweber or MailChimp. You can create a daily and weekly newsletter for your audience to subscribe to.
The very timely nature of posts make it extremely social. You can use one of the many social sharing plugins to allow your users to share your posts in social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc.
Posts encourage conversation. They have a built-in comment feature that allows users to comment on a particular topic. By default, comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks are enabled.
You can go to your Settings » Discussion to turn off comments on older posts if you like.
WordPress posts usually have the name of the author and published/updated date.
The best example of a WordPress post may be this article which you are reading now. Go to the top, and you can see the post category ‘Beginner’s Guide’ above the article title. Below the title, there is the last updated date, author’s name, and social share buttons.
After the main article content, there is the comments section. You cannot usually find these on a page.
Now that you know what are posts, let’s take a look at pages and how they are different.
What are Pages in WordPress?
Pages are static “one-off” type content such as your about page, privacy policy, contact page, etc. While the WordPress database stores the published date of the page, pages are timeless entities.
For example, your about page is not suppose to expire. Sure you can go back and make updates to it, but chances are you will not have about page 2012, about page 2013 etc. Because there is no time and date tied to pages, they are not included in your RSS feeds by default.
You can add and edit pages in WordPress from ‘Pages’ menu in your dashboard. Here is how Add New Page screen looks like:
Pages are not meant to be social in most cases thus do not include social sharing buttons. For example, you probably don’t want others to tweet your privacy policy page in most cases.
Similarly, pages also don’t include comments. You don’t want users to comment on your contact page or your legal disclaimers page. There is an option to enable comments, however, it is disabled by default for your WordPress pages.
Unlike posts, pages are hierarchical by nature. For example, you can have subpages or child pages within a page. You can easily turn a page into subpage by choosing a parent page from Page Attributes when editing a page.
A key example of this in action would be our Blueprint page. This feature allows you to organize your pages together, and even assign a custom template to them.
WordPress by default comes with a feature that allows you create custom page templates using your theme. This allows developers to customize the look of each page when necessary.
In most themes, post and pages look the same. But when you are using your page to create a landing page or a gallery page, then the custom page templates feature comes in very handy.
Pages also have this archaic feature called ‘Order’ which lets you customize the order of pages by assigning a number value to it. However, this feature is extended by plugins like Simple Page Ordering that allows you to drag & drop the order of pages.
WordPress Pages vs. Posts (Key Differences)
To summarize, following are the key differences between posts vs pages in WordPress.
- Posts are timely vs. Pages are timeless.
- Posts are social vs. Pages are NOT.
- Posts are organized using categories and tags vs. Pages are hierarchical and can be organized as child and parent pages.
- Posts are included in RSS feed vs. Pages are not.
- Posts have author and published date vs Pages do not.
The differences we listed above may have exceptions. You can use plugins to extend the functionality of both content types.
Despite these differences, there are some similarities between pages and posts in WordPress.
First, they are both used for publishing content. You can add text, images, forms, etc. to both posts and pages. There is featured image meta-field in both pages and posts.
You can build a website without ever using posts or blogging features of WordPress. You can also make a business website with pages and a separate blog section for your news, announcements, and other articles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Following are some of the most frequently asked questions we have heard from our users about posts vs. pages, and how to properly use them in WordPress.
1. How Many Posts and/or Pages Can I Have?
You can have as many posts and/or pages that you want. There is no limit on the number of posts or pages that can be created.
2. Are there any SEO advantages to one or the other?
Search engines like content to be organized. Timeless content is considered to be more important; however, there is a lot of priority given to the latest timely content.
In short, there may be a difference, but as a beginner, you do not need to worry about it. Focus on making your site organized for the user. To learn more, see our complete WordPress SEO guide for beginners.
3. Which pages I should create on my website or blog?
It really depends on what kind of blog or website you are making. However, you may want to see our list of important pages for all websites.
4. Can I switch posts to pages and vice versa?
Many beginners accidentally add content to posts when they actually wanted to create pages. Similarly, some new bloggers may end up saving blog posts as pages.
If you have just started out, then you can easily fix that by using the post type switcher plugin. For more details see our article on how to switch post types in WordPress.
5. Are there other content types in WordPress besides posts and pages?
Yes, there are. However, these other default content types include attachments, revisions, and navigation menus which are normally not used the same way as posts and pages.
WordPress also allows developers to create their own custom post types. This feature is used by plugins to create additional content types in WordPress. For example, if you are running a WooCommerce store, then you will see a ‘Products’ post type in your WordPress admin area.
We hope this article helped you learn the difference between pages and posts in WordPress and how to use them. You may also want to see our list of important things to do after installing WordPress.
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Great stuff. Just starting out with WP and this is exactly what I need. Many useful links to other, equally useful, posts (or are they pages? – only kidding). Really useful site – I have emailed myself the URL. Many thanks – please keep up the good work.
PS – never left comments on a WP site before – so interested in seeing how this works.
Glad you like our content
Thanks for this helpfull guid.
But I have a question, for exemple this webpage : https://www.wpbeginner.com/category/beginners-guide/ its post or page?
Thanks
That is an archive page, we’ve linked directly to the category and it is showing the archive for beginners guides which is styled the same as our posts page.
thanks for clarifying me on this
You’re welcome
Hello, will I be able to use a website as both a blog and a ‘website’ simultaneously?
I mean, if I would use pages and posts on a website, simultaneously…
You can certainly use those features together. We have an article that should help clear up some confusion here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-is-a-blog-and-how-is-it-different-from-a-website-explained/
PRODUCT PAGE: POSTS OR PAGES?
That varies from one plugin to another, it is normally a page listing a custom post type if I understand what you’re asking correctly.
I was wondering if the articles on wpbeginner are posts or pages as they have a page-like url but most features of a blog post. Also, many of the articles are often updated over time to keep the contents of the article up to date. How do you deal with those updates and making sure readers know about them? The reason I am asking is because I am also writing a list of articles with coding tips/tutorials and am wondering if I should write them as posts or pages on my wordpress site. I hope you can give me advice!
Hi,
We use posts to publish most of our articles.
Doesn’t that mean, we should always use Pages if we want a unique design for the mega content we are going to create?
Otherwise, post seems to have a lot of limitation of how the overall content visual to be structured.
I have to translate my content across multiple languages – so my current blog is being housed in pages vs posts. If I move my blog over to posts – can i translate that out?
Hi Stephanie,
You can translate your WordPress content by using a WordPress multilingual plugin.
Hello and thanks for the great site. I’ve been running some WP sites for a few years and I always come to WPBeginner for quality and concise information.
The sites I’ve built have been fine with static pages but one client (my wife) wants to add a blog to her martial arts site.
How do we make something that looks like the blog page on this site?
I understand how to create the post, and can add it to a menu, but do not know how to make a page with the chronological list of posts.
Is this a feature of the specific theme? I am using Genesis and Responsive.
Thanks again, I’m sure there’s an obvious solution that I’m overlooking.
Hi Bruce,
Please see our guide on how to create a separate page for blog posts in WordPress.
I’m not sure i was doing wrong. Please help.
On my website, im publishing the same topic as Post and page (So two URLs has same topic, 1 page and 1 posts).
Any issues on that? or do i need to remove one of them? Thanks.
Hi,
I have been using wordpress for web development for a while now. I am starting a new tutorial site in wordpress. I am confused in writing tutorials as pages or posts. Number of tutorials wil be huge. So should i publish tutorials as posts or pages.(please suggest me on this). And how do i include category name in permalink of pages
Suggestions will be highly appreciated.
Many Thanks
I have a smiliar question. Waiting for this to be answered.
Seems like no one has answered you yet so I’ll make my own decision based on the article.
I would like each of my tutorials to be shared on social media and accept comments which would lead me to posts instead of pages.
However, my tutorials cover many different themes and I feel like having a category list to the side with 5 billion different links will be a bit much. I also don’t like that they will be time and date stamped because they really aren’t blog posts but permanent pages on my site that most likely will never be changed or replicated.
I guess I’ll just suck it up and go with posts.
I say definitely use posts, and I’m almost certain that you can fill pages with certain types of posts to categorize them using the hierarchy of pages.
Use a custom post type. Setup a custom post type for your Tutorials, specifically. That is the best setup, as it is clean and keeps your blog posts sepearate. Pages are absolutely inferior in this use case, and most use cases. A good plugin for this is CPT UI (free). That mixed with Advanced Custom Fields offers an incredible amount of customization and efficiency if used correctly.
As for the many category issue. I recommend reading some guides on categories/tags. Ideally, your categories should be few and broad, while your tags are many. With ACF you can create new “category” type lists if needed, often not needed though.
You can also depend on sub-categories a lot. Having very broad parent categories, with their many child categories beneath. Show the user only the child categories for their selected main category and they won’t have a large list to deal with. When they see the initial tutorial page you show them the parent categories only. There are many ways of achieving a user-friendly design through this.
I’m building a website with more or less timeless content. Definitely not a blog with dates, etc.. So I could dispense with Posts altogether? I have put Pages on the top running menu bar. Each Page will have a bunch of sub-pages and those can have sub-pages (grandchild pages?). Which will also dictate the URLs, right? From the reply to the previous question, I gather the downside to that is that Pages can’t be labeled with categories? Downside of using Posts,however, is that they can’t be grouped and sub-grouped under a Page?
In the past few days I’ve been wondering if those general content descriptors on the menu bar should be categories instead of Pages. This reply to the previous question seems to point in that direction: “Another way to do that is by creating templates for your categories.” But no … I’m going to have a mammoth informational/magazine type site and that would extremely limit the number of categories, seems to me. Maybe that wouldn’t matter if the number of tags was kept limited, however.
I’m not totally new to WordPress, since I use Wordpess.com for a simple personal portfolio type site. So category name(s) will appear–usually on the top left corner–of a post. But they won’t appear at all on a Page?
Whew! Sorry to sound so confusing. (Well, obviously, I’m confused!). Can you just answer the first question: Can I dispense with Posts altogether? What are the disadvantages and advantages of that?
I can’t be the first person with this question in mind. Thanks!
Hi Susan,
You can dispense posts altogether and use pages with child pages to organize your site’s structure. You can add categories and tags to pages, if you want.
From my static home page, there are blog post categories in the menu across the top. Can I pin content to the top of the category archive page? Regular pinning isn’t working for that.
I have a lifestyle blog for my city. When someone goes to a category from the top menu (food, drink, shopping, etc.) I want them to see a short description (that will always be at the top), then see the blog posts that fall into that category as they scroll down.
Is there a way to do that? I’m using the Bento theme.
I’m game to change the categories across the top to pages so the content I want to always be seen would be there, but would I be able to get the posts to show up underneath?
Thanks for any help I can get.
Hey Terry,
There are multiple ways to do that. For example, you can add the content you want to be displayed as category descriptions. Another way to do that is by creating templates for your categories. You can add them by simply naming the file category-{category-slug}.php like category-news.php.
I’m trying to organize a blog of my trips with pages for each day and pictures associated with those pages. Is this possible in WordPress?
Hey Julie,
Yes. In fact many travel writers use WordPress to share their journeys with photos, galleries, videos, text, and more. Check out our guide on how to start a WordPress blog for step by step instructions on how to get started.
Thanks I have just been cleared!
I confess I´m pretty confused about it. I actually don´t know deal with categories in a post.
Hi Civali,
Please take a look at our guide on the difference between categories and tags. It will help you understand how to use categories for your posts.
I wonder how to organize content like episode guides for a TV show (that has been broadcasted years ago) with a kind of scientific interpretation of it. I think it’s very much timeless content, since it’s no actual show anymore and I don’t want to have comments on it. It should be the definitive article on the net to the subject.
So, should I write my big episode guide with plot and interpretation as a page and just put a post on my blog like “new episode guide for show – episode x season y” with a link to the page?
I have to admit it was hard to decide against a wiki because I don’t think I have timely content. But a blog seems to be more like a reflection of my personal opinion and more conversational and entertaining than a “dry” wiki text.
Hi Bastian,
There are plenty of ways to organize this in WordPress. For example, you can Use categories for each season, and create a new post for each episode in that season.
You can use tags to assign different characters, topics, and themes that came up during that particular episode.
You can also create a custom post type.
Thank you very much. Sounds interesting.
Somehow I think it just doesn’t feel right to use pages for articles. All the fine features like widgets, sharing etc. have to be added through plugins while posts have it all embedded. ATM I tend to use posts, because it just feels right. It feels like the way, WordPress should be used.
What I like on Pages in a strange way is, that all these distractions like widgets, sharing etc. are missing. The content area is wider (in my current theme), so for now: I start using posts but not sure if it will always stay this way. I will just have an open mind and keep experimenting. Time will tell.