Tutorials WordPress

WordPress Pages vs. Posts: What’s the Difference?

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Written by

Dave Warfel

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7 minutes

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If you’re new to WordPress, it can be hard to understand the difference between WordPress Pages & Posts. There are distinct differences between the two, and it’s important to learn about them before you start building your site.

WordPress Pages vs. Posts Comparison Chart
Click image to download chart as .jpg

This article will explain what each one is, and cover all the similarities and differences between WordPress Pages & Posts. We’ll provide examples of when to use a Page vs. a Post, the SEO implications, and answer some frequently asked questions.

For a quick, visual breakdown, jump to the comparison chart.

Table of Contents

  1. What is a WordPress Page?
  2. What is a WordPress Post?
  3. Features of BOTH Pages & Posts
  4. Comparison Chart
  5. SEO Considerations
  6. Frequently Asked Questions

NOTE: Both Pages & Posts can be customized (using custom code and/or plugins) to include or exclude many different features. All information in this post assumes a default WordPress installation without any modifications.

01What is a WordPress Page?

A WordPress Page refers to a specific type of content (aka: Post Type) typically used for static pages. Static pages are not date-sensitive, created once, and often remain untouched for longer periods of time. A Page’s features differ from that of Posts in several ways:

  • Pages contain static content, and are not listed on archive pages
  • Pages cannot contain categories or tags
  • Most WordPress themes automatically list Pages in your main navigation menu
  • You can create sub-menus, or dropdown menus, by creating Pages in a parent–>child relationship
  • Pages can be used to create a custom homepage
  • WordPress Pages are hierarchical (Posts are chronological)

When to Use WordPress Pages

If your content ticks both of these boxes, I’d probably recommend using a WordPress Page:

  • the content will not be updated frequently
  • the content will remain relevant for a long period of time

Here’s a few examples of when you should use WordPress Pages (instead of Posts):

  • If your company offers a handful of products or services, they should be created using Pages
  • About, services, contact, legal and privacy pages are best formatted as WordPress Pages
  • Use Pages when you want to group content so it fits in a parent–>child, (hierarchical) relationship, or if you want to customize the URL structure
    yoursite.com/services/marketing/
    yoursite.com/services/web-design/

02What is a WordPress Post?

A WordPress Post refers to a specific type of content typically used for blog posts, news articles or other date-sensitive content. A Post’s features differ from that of Pages in several important ways:

  • You can use categories & tags to organize your Posts
  • Posts are automatically categorized by month, day & year, as well as author, and listed on what are called “archive pages”
  • On archive pages, Posts are shown in reverse chronological order (most recent Post first; oldest Post last)
  • Posts can be assigned a Post Format (i.e. gallery, quote, audio, video, etc.), which themes could then use to customize the Post’s layout
  • Posts can be made “sticky,” which means they will always appear at the top of your archive pages, regardless of when they were published
  • Posts can include an excerpt, which some WordPress themes choose to display in different ways
  • Posts are included in your site’s RSS feed

When to Use WordPress Posts

If you are not going to post regular news or updates about your business, chances are you won’t use Posts at all. A simple business website, with a homepage, about, services & contact page, does not need to use WordPress Posts.

Here are a few examples of when you should use WordPress Posts (instead of Pages):

  • Your personal blog should use Posts to publish regular articles about travel, adventures, your fitness journey, rock collection, funny things your dog does, etc. Any specific topic that you plan to write about regularly should be a Post.
  • Company events, announcements, conferences attended, etc. on your business website should be Posts. These are date-sensitive pieces of content.
  • Press releases should almost always be Posts, not Pages.
  • All content that you want syndicated via WordPress’ built-in RSS feed should use a Post
  • All other pieces of content that will be published regularly and centered around a common theme or topic

As a general rule of thumb, if you’re not blogging or adding new content to your site on a regular basis, just use pages.

Sometimes WordPress includes one sample Post and a sample comment. If you’re only using Pages, you should delete both the Post and the comment so they don’t show up in search engines.

03Features of Both WordPress Pages & Posts

Both Pages & Posts have several things in common:

  • There’s no limit to the amount of Pages or Posts you create
  • They both include a page title
  • They both provide all standard content editing tools that WordPress offers (text, lists, headings, alignment, etc.)
  • You can add images and/or embed video
  • Both Pages & Posts allow you to set a featured image
  • They both support custom fields
  • They both support comments & trackbacks, although typically these are only shown on Posts
  • They both allow you to choose the author of the content, although they’re typically only shown on Posts
  • They both maintain a publish date, although this is typically only shown on Posts
  • You can set their visibility to public, password-protected or private
  • Revisions are kept for both WordPress Pages & Posts
  • Custom layout templates can be used for both
  • You can preview your content before making it live
  • You can schedule content to publish at a later time

04WordPress Pages vs. Posts Comparison Chart

In our WordPress Pages vs. Posts comparison chart, you’ll see 3 main values:

  • Supported means WordPress has full support for the feature
  • Supported, typically not displayed means WordPress supports those features, but most themes do not display the information to visitors on your website
  • Not Supported means a default WordPress site does not allow that feature. However, support can be added via custom code or plugins.

Download the chart .jpg – Please link back to this page when mentioning the chart.

Features Posts Pages
Content Type Chronological Hierarchical
Limit No Limit No Limit
Page Title Supported Supported
Content Editing Tools Supported Supported
Images & Video Embeds Supported Supported
Featured Image Supported Supported
Custom Fields Supported Supported
Custom Layout Templates Supported Supported
Visibility
Public, Private, Password-Protected
Supported Supported
Revisions Supported Supported
Preview Before Publishing Supported Supported
Schedule for Later Supported Supported
Comments & Trackbacks Supported Supported
typically not displayed
Author Supported Supported
typically not displayed
Publish Date Supported Supported
typically not displayed
Added to Menus Yes Yes
Categories & Tags Supported Not Supported
Archive Pages
Year, Month, Day, Author
Supported Not Supported
Post Formats
Gallery, Quote, Audio, Video, etc.
Supported Not Supported
“Sticky” Supported Not Supported
Excerpts Supported Not Supported
RSS Feed Supported Not Supported
Used for Static Homepage No Yes
Custom Ordering Not Supported Supported
Custom URL Structure Not Supported Supported

If you’re still unsure whether to use a Page or a Post for your WordPress content, leave a comment below and I’ll help you out.

05WordPress Pages vs Posts: SEO Considerations

In terms of SEO, one is not really any better than the other. You can’t improve your search rankings by choosing Pages over Posts, or vice versa. Ultimately, you should choose a Page or a Post based on what’s best for your audience. If you follow the suggestions above, and organize your content in a way that makes sense, your SEO will see the most benefit.

Regardless of which post type you choose, you should always consider:

  • updating your content
  • regularly sharing your content on social media
  • adding links to some of your other valuable content
  • linking out to valuable resources on other sites

Read our complete WordPress SEO guide for more tips.

06Frequently Asked Questions

We’ve compiled a few FAQs surrounding the use of WordPress Pages vs. Posts.

Should my homepage be a list of posts or a static page?

It depends. As a general rule of thumb…

  • If your site’s main focus is disseminating new information in the form of blog posts or news articles, you should consider setting your homepage to be a list of recent posts.
  • If your site’s main focus is to promote, educate or sell a product or service (anything other than blogging, really), you probably want to highlight that product or service on a static page.

You can also combine both methods. Some themes give you the option to include information about a product or service, as well as showcase a handful of recent blog posts.

WordPress page builders are also helpful in creating a hybrid approach. Check out Beaver Builder if you’re interested in building a completely custom homepage.

How many Pages or Posts can I have?

As many as you want. You can create an unlimited number of both WordPress Pages & Posts.


I hope this overview helped you understand the difference between WordPress Pages vs. Posts. If you have a question that we didn’t cover, leave us a comment and we’ll try to answer it as best we can.

Dave Warfel

LinkedIn  •  X (Twitter)
Dave has been working with WordPress since 2011. He's built 100s of client sites and almost a dozen of his own. He's tested almost every plugin you can think of, hosted with at least 10 different companies, and gone down every SEO rabbit hole you can imagine. When's he's not tinkering with new software, you'll find him in the mountains of Colorado, trail running, summiting peaks, and rippin' downhills on his mountain bike. 🏔️🏃🚴🤸

14 responses to “WordPress Pages vs. Posts: What’s the Difference?”

  1. Vale Avatar
    Vale

    Hi
    I am starting to build a wp site, my intention is to use pages and put inside those pages a list of links with the most important post types.
    Buy is kind of tricky to avoid duplicate content because posts have their own category and sinlge pages.

    1. Dave Warfel Avatar

      Hi Vale —

      There are two ways that I can suggest you approach this:

      1. Instead of using pages, use the built-in category pages. These already display a bunch of posts that are in one category. You can add a category description at the top, customize the excerpt for each post, etc. — There are plugins & themes out there that help you make beautiful category pages.

      2. For FULL control over the page, you could use an actual “Page”. Write whatever content you want on this broad topic, and have sections on the page where you link out to individual posts. If you’re creating an “ultimate guide” of sorts, this is the way I’d go.

      And then you can use the Yoast SEO plugin to noindex your category page(s) from Google so you don’t get hit with duplicate content.

  2. Vale Avatar
    Vale

    Dave, I really appreciate your suggestion!
    Now It is very clear to me
    Have a nice weekend!

    1. Dave Warfel Avatar

      😀 Glad that all made sense. Good luck with it, and enjoy your weekend as well!

  3. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    Write whatever content you want on this broad topic, and have sections on the page where you link out to individual posts. If you’re creating an “ultimate guide” of sorts,

    … would this warrant a noindex ?

    1. Dave Warfel Avatar

      Not sure I understand your question, Mike.

      noindex typically refers to a <meta> tag that one adds to a page on their site that tells Google not to include that page in their index. How is that relevant in the context of Pages vs. Posts?

  4. umair bin tahir Avatar
    umair bin tahir

    I appreciate your efforts. One thing i need to know is that I have 12 courses and all 12 courses have around 70-80 topics in them. Now what do you suggest that i go on creating 400-500 pages and link them to their parent course page. or the second thing is I have to create posts for topics and then link them a category page(with parent course name).

    If you have any plugin in your mind that can help me design category page. Please let me know.

    Cheers

    1. Dave Warfel Avatar

      Hi umair — If you’re creating online courses, I recommend you use an LMS platform. LearnDash is what I recommend.

      I do not recommend you use static WordPress pages (or posts) to manage your courses.

  5. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    Thanks for this article. It is helpful. I am generating content for my company’s B2B website (it was content-lite previously). We sell many products, the applications of which are not always obvious to our users. Each product has its own page. I am generating application notes and additional content explaining considerations that go into deciding when and how to use particular products. These articles will be fairly static. It seems to me as though these should be pages rather than posts.

    That said, however, I want to find a way for customers to find and easily access our application notes without having to search through products. If I cannot use categories and tags, then should I create a menu (or submenu) item that allows customers to access the application notes?

    Thanks for your input.

    Best Regards,

    Robert

    1. Dave Warfel Avatar

      Hi Robert. It does sound like pages make more sense for your application notes.

      Yes, creating a menu is a great idea. Menus are very flexible in WordPress. Most themes usually have a main navigation bar at the top where you can place menu items, as well as some type of footer menu (theme dependent). And all WordPress sites let you insert any menu into a sidebar or other widgetized area.

      If you add the menu as a widget to a sidebar, you could use the Widget Options plugin to decide which pages/sections to display the menu, and which places to hide it.

      As you create the pages, you might also want to consider creating a parent page called “Application Notes,” and making all notes as child pages of that one. It’ll help keep things more organized.

      Let me know if you have any other questions I can help with.

  6. Robert Woodman Avatar
    Robert Woodman

    Thank you!

  7. Lester Avatar
    Lester

    Thank you for the clarification and contribution to the WordPress community Dave. Have a good day!

  8. Duke Avatar
    Duke

    Sir, i have a question. If we develop online tools like speed test tool, icon maker, pdf compressor or calculators that are surely timeless entities. Can these kinds of tools show on Blog Posts or Page? Hence, tools don’t need fresh content and have permanent content.

    And URL of these pages can be made to set silo structure

    domain.com/abc-tools
    domain.com/abc-tools/compress
    domain.com/abc-tools/merge

    Kindly advice.

    1. Dave Warfel Avatar

      I would use Pages for things like that.

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