Blogger Magic: Pages Vs Posts

Not all blog owners know what pages are - nor how they differ from posts. We see confusion, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How do I publish a post, which always appears on the home page?

or

How do I publish a post, which never appears on the home page?

or

How do I publish multiple posts on a page?

Long ago, we used workarounds, like publishing a post, using a future or past date. The workarounds would create a post which would always, or never, appear on the home page - but there were always side effects, from using either technique.

In 2010, Blogger gave us static pages - pages which are created and look like posts - but never appear in archive, label, or main page displays.

We were able to link to the static pages, using tabs lists and linklists, that we could create, as we liked. The pages editor has the same look and feel as the posts editor - and pages have the same look and feel as posts.

In 2011, they gave us the Pages gadget, a prebuilt XML gadget, which we use to index both posts and pages. In 2012, they gave us Custom Permalinks and Redirects, which let us use our posts and pages in imaginative ways.

Some blog owners construct blogs like static websites - until they run up against the Blogger static pages limit.

The static pages limit will be a problem, for those who never bother to note the functional differences between dynamic pages (also known as "posts"), and static pages (also known as "pages") - until their uncontrolled use of static pages restricts continued blog expansion.

Look at some examples of dynamic and static content.

This is a dynamic page URL, from this blog:

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2013/08/blogger-magic-pages-vs-posts.html

See the "/2012/04/"? That denotes a dynamic page, with a date.

This is a second dynamic page URL, from this blog:

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/search/label/Pages

The "/search/label/" also denotes a dynamic page.

This is a third dynamic page URL, from this blog:

http://recipes.nitecruzr.net/

External pages are also dynamic, because their content is not controlled as part of this blog.

This is a static page URL, from this blog:

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/p/topics.html

See the "/p/"? That denotes a static page. A static page can appear like a single post, with slight differences.

The limit on static pages is a resource issue. Static pages require specific resources, pre allocated to every blog. Increasing the limit on static pages, as with increasing the limit on number of labels, would require a change to all blogs. Such resources are limited, just as everything is limited, in some way.

Even if you can have only up to 20 static pages, you can index an unlimited amount of dynamic pages, using the Pages gadget, and adding "Web address" entries. There is no limit, with dynamic pages.

When you add the combinations of dynamic and static pages, with the possibilities of custom redirects, you get many different possibilities, and different possible advantages - and this will look like magic, to the untrained eye.

>> Top

Recovering A Deleted Page Or Post, Chapter 3

We've been advising anxious blog owners, for some time, how to recover deleted pages and posts.

The easiest solution, in the long run, is to recover the PageID / PostID, and re publish the deleted page / post.

Unfortunately, all deleted pages and posts can't be edited and re published. With new posts, un indexed by the search engines, you won't be able to find the post in cache - and you'll never determine the PostID. This will be a frequent problem with deleted pages - as static pages generally won't get indexed by the search engines - nor will they ever be included in the blog posts feed.

In some cases, even when you know the PageID or PostID, the page editor / post editor may simply reject your attempt to re edit - and give you another bX code.

Even so, all is not lost. You may have to rebuild the page or post - but you can generally keep the URL, of the deleted page or post, operational. Just plan the rebuilding process.

In cases where a deleted page or post can't be simply re published, you can publish a replacement page or post - and redirect both your readers, and the search engines, from the URL of the deleted page / post, to the replacement page or post.

To minimise loss of reader and search engine reputation, you'll want to publish a replacement page / post as soon as possible after the old page / post is mistakenly deleted. With replacement posts published in the same month as the original - and with all pages - this can cause the well known ugly URL suffix, to prevent a duplicate URL.

When you publish a replacement page or post, you have one chance to get the title and URL right - and prevent the ugly URL suffix. The one chance ends, when you hit the "Publish" button.

With a deleted post, you can use the Custom Permalink option ("Permalink", under "Post settings", in the post editor window) to make the published URL slightly different from the default. Alternately, you'll need to deliberately choose a slightly different Title, for the replacement post.

When you publish a replacement page, you won't have a "Custom Permalink" option. Your only option, in this case, is to choose a slightly different Title, for the replacement Page.

Static page URLs do not contain the year and month of publishing, so you'll need to use a different Title for every replacement page - even if you publish the replacement in a later month, or even a later year. Since static pages are generally not as widely publicised as posts, the different title should still be preferable to the alternative - the ugly page URL suffix.

Just choose the title and URL carefully, before you hit "Publish", to prevent long term embarrassment. And having published the replacement, setup a Custom Redirect, to keep the URL of the deleted page or post operational.

>> Top