Moving posts to archive
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Hi, I’m reactivating my blog after multiple years away from it. Because I want to pivot the focus of the content, I want to move less-relevant old posts to a new section of the site. More specifically: I want to move the posts I no longer want to highlight to an archive, but there are certain older posts I DO want to keep in the main-page feed.
The standard ‘Archives Block’ widget is not sufficient for my needs — what I need goes a bit beyond a straight chronological ordering. And I’d like (if possible) to organize the page to let the reader understand they are navigating away from the main page.
So, questions:
1. Is there a way to create a customized archive without upgrading to a business plan?
2. Is there a way to move individual posts to that archive (whether it’s a sidebar widget or simply a new page within the site) without needing to copy/paste each individual post?Thanks much, appreciate any assistance you can bring to the table.
The site I need help with is itsbrianlarue.wordpress.com.
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Hi there,
It sounds like adding unique category names to the old posts that you would like to collect to a separate page could be achieved with Categories.
Then creating a new Page/ Menu from those can be easily done this way: https://wordpress.com/support/posts/categories/#category-pages-and-menus
Although this will not take them out from your main-page feed. You can solve that by creating another Category for the posts that you would like to include to your main feed, and in the Blog Post Block you can use the Display Settings to control which posts that are displayed in the block.
There might be a more elegant solution to your question but this could work as well. Others might suggest something better.
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This is the most comprehensive — and also the most courteous — answer I’ve seen so far for this question. Thank you.
I’ve gone into the dashboard, poked around in the Blog Post Block, and found where I can select specific posts in the Display Settings. Thanks for your step-by-step breakdown. It’s interesting because I’ve been away from WordPress’s back end since just barely before the block editor was rolled out. It looks like I have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me, but my needs are so simple that I expect I’ll catch my balance quickly enough. I think the flexibility of the block editor is pretty compelling and will enable me to do things to improve UX a bit.
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Okay, a bit of a follow-up. I feel like I’m about 75% to where I need to be. I’m still seeing all of my public posts in the feed on my main blog page, though. Maybe you or someone else has some guidance here.
I inserted a new menu called “Old Stuff” as a widget. It’s in the right rail now with my other widgets. Looks good. I had categorized one old post as “Old Stuff,” as an experiment. It appears in the “Old Stuff” widget now. Great.
I went into the Blog Post block, then went into Display Settings. There, I saw where I toggled on “Choose Specific Posts.” I manually selected all the posts I wanted to appear on the homepage, then hit Update.
Cleared browsing history including cache, closed the tab, opened a new one, loaded up my site (and I wasn’t logged in, because clearing history logged me out of everything), and saw all of my public posts right there in the blog feed — whether or not I had selected them in the Blog Post block.
It almost seems as though WordPress.com has overridden my decision about what should be displayed on the homepage (the blog section is set as the homepage), but I imagine I’m actually the source of the error. So what did I miss?
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Hi there!
I had a look at your site, and it looks like you’re displaying all your posts on the homepage.
You’ll want to go to Appearance>Customize and choose a static page as your homepage. The page you’d use would be the one where you added the Blog Posts Block with your chosen posts.I hope that makes sense :)
Here you can see full instructions on how to set a static homepage:
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Yes, this design is intentional. The blog is the main event, really the only reason this site has to exist. It has to be the landing page; adding a static landing page would add an extra step for the visitor to access the blog, and I don’t expect the average visitor would take that extra step.
If it’s not possible to hide select posts from the main feed, that’s okay — just don’t want to spend a lot of time running after a solution if it’s ultimately a dead end. As it stands, it appears that one (clunky, but acceptable if possible to create) solution could be to create a new page on the site, link to it in the main menu, make that page function as a list of links to “archived” posts, create a new page for each old post, and paste the content from each old post onto a page. Those individual-article pages would link only to the list of old posts, and would not appear in the main menu. Unlike the blog (landing page) section of the site, the archives are meant for only the most engaged visitors; extra steps are totally acceptable with the archives and few visitors would have any desire t follow them.
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It sounds like you might have a “good enough” solution now? If you have other questions or need help with anything else, let us know!
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It has to be the landing page; adding a static landing page would add an extra step for the visitor to access the blog, and I don’t expect the average visitor would take that extra step.
If it’s not possible to hide select posts from the main feed, that’s okay — just don’t want to spend a lot of time running after a solution if it’s ultimately a dead end.
Just to clarify, this is possible. Try making a page here:
https://wordpress.com/pageAdd a blog posts block:
https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/blog-posts-block/Select the categories you want to display there. Set up the page as you like it. Then if that would make a suitable front page for you, make it so with Customizer > Front Page Settings.
For the less-relevant pages, add the same tag to all of them, then use the block block on another page of the site.
Hoping that helps.
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@supernovia What you’re describing sounds like the step I was missing while I was walking through @csabarakasz’s instructions. I don’t think I had stepped back far enough and put myself in the mindset of rebuilding some of the foundational elements of the site. So this makes a lot of sense.
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Hi @itsbrianlaure,
I think you got it figured out. The final step I was describing was perfectly explained by @supernovia in her last post.
I hope it will work great for you!
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Awesome. Really good to see such a show of community support on this q over the last few days. Thanks, all!
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