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.

Static pages are not published, except intentionally by the blog owner.

Static pages are not included in the posts newsfeed, or in the posts sitemap. They are only indexed by the search engines when linked intentionally in blog content, or in the pages sitemap.

In 2017, Blogger added a blog pages newsfeed, so you can distribute newly published pages - if you compose your blog using static pages as important blog content. You can use the blog pages feed, as you would the blog posts feed - if you wish.

You can link to a static page as you wish.

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.

A static page is similar to a post, just with less extra features.

A static page is like a very simple post - it has a content, and a title. Just go to the Pages dashboard page, and click on "New page". Using the Page Editor (which is designed to look like the Post Editor), create and publish a Page. Then, decide where you want it to appear.

A published static page appears where you want it - and only where you want it.

• In the Pages gadget, when you select it under "Pages to show".
• Never in an Archives index.
• Never in a Label list.
• Anywhere you want to link it.

There was a static page limit, originally, now lifted.

Some blog owners construct blogs like static websites - which used to present a problem, with the Blogger static pages limit.

The static pages limit was discontinued, in 2014. You can now add as many static pages, as you wish. Just understand the differences between dynamic pages ("posts"), and static pages ("pages"). Both have their own, unique purposes.

Examine some examples, for better understanding.

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

Posts ("blogging.nitecruzr.net/2013/08/blogger-magic-pages-vs-posts.html") are dynamic - because they are constantly being published, and revised.

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

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

Label search pages ("/search/label/") are dynamic - because they change, as posts are added and deleted.

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

http://recipes.nitecruzr.net/

External pages ("recipes.nitecruzr.net") are 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/", in the URL? That denotes a static page. A static page can appear like a single post, with slight differences.

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.