What Is the Difference Between a WordPress Page and a WordPress Post?

For those who are new to blogging, the difference between a page and a post may be unclear. While it’s true that the two items do have some elements in common – for example, they both have titles and content, and they both use your WordPress website’s templates to give them a similar appearance - posts and pages are actually quite different.

In WordPress, a post is a regular blog entry. Posts automatically display on your blog’s home page when you publish them, and they appear within a normal blog chronology. (Typically this is a reverse chronological order, with the newest posts appearing at the top, while the older posts get moved to your blog’s archives.)

A WordPress page, on the other hand, contains information that is static (or at least, less time-dependent than most blog posts), and pages usually have nothing to do with your blog flow. Types of pages would include “About,” “Contact Us,” “Company Information,” and other details that would always be applicable to your website.   

Two other key features of pages:

1. They can be organized into a system of pages and sub-pages, creating a hierarchy similar to that used in your WordPress categories.
2. They can use different page templates that include their own specific PHP code, and override your theme’s default page.php settings.

Creating Posts Vs. Pages

The process of creating posts and pages is quite simple. To add a new post, log in to your WordPress Dashboard, then go to Posts > Add New.

Similarly, to create a new page, from your WordPress Dashboard, choose Pages > Add New. The only difference is that with pages, you’ll often need to edit the permalink to avoid having the page’s creation date included in the URL (for example, “http://www.mywebsite.com/2009/05/contact.php” can be shortened to “http://www.mywebsite.com/contact.php”).

To change the URL of your page, go to Manage > Pages. Click “Edit” next to your page. See the permalink below the title, then click “Edit” to change it.

Save your changes when you have finished, and you should have a much tidier URL for your static page.

For more information, visit the WordPress Codex for details on WordPress pages and WordPress posts.

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!

Tagged as: pages, posts, wordpress