Posts not displayed on Front Page

  • Unknown's avatar
    thejadezone · Member ·

    When I use to publish a blog post, it would automatically appear on the front page.

    I then added a category to the menu so that I could publish my vlog videos on a separate page. Category is: Vlog.

    Now when I publish a blog post, it no longer appears on the front page unless I select ‘Stick to Front Page’ under ‘Sticky’ in the advanced settings. It then appears on the front page with the mention ‘Featured’ instead of the date of the post (as use to be the case).

    I noticed that in the Customize menu for my theme I have selected the option: Front page displays: Your latest posts.

    I therefore do not understand what I have done wrong? Why are the posts not appearing on the front page unless I select ‘Stick to Front Page’ under ‘Sticky’ in the advanced settings? Is it because I changed the menu when I added the Vlog category to it?

    Any help would be much appreciated :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    Will you please check your settings?

    You have two and only two choices on any blog
    (1) All posts on the front page.
    (2) A static front page and all posts on a different page.

    By default the front page of your blog displays all published posts (not pages) in reverse chronological order, with the most recently published post on top. That is for the convenience of your returning visitors who will not be happy to have to click through an About page every time they visit your blog as they come to read your most recently published content. Creating that situation can make some visitors annoyed – so annoyed that they stop following your blog.

    However, if you do not want all the posts to show on the front page, then you can create a static front page called for example “Welcome” for your site and a “Blog” page for all published posts (not pages) to display on in reverse chronological order, with the most recently published post on top.

    To do that create two pages first http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/

    After you do that you go to > Settings > Reading and make the designation change for each of the two page and click “save changes”.
    A static page (select below)
    Front page:
    Posts page:

    The guide for creating a static front page is here http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/front-page/

  • Unknown's avatar
    thejadezone · Member ·

    Thank you for your reply.

    I guess where I am confused is why cant the regular posts just go to the front page by default and the vlogs go to the vlog ”category” page when I select Vlog as category before posting them.

    So if I understand well, I should just post all of my blog posts and vlogs to the front page (no separate category page in the menu).

    Or make a static page (welcome) with a separate page for blog posts and a category page for Vlogs.

    However, I am wondering if having a static front page on a wordpress site affects SEO, google ranking, etc?

    Thanks again for your reply :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    I don’t think you understand how to use dynamic category pages in a custom menu.

    By default the front page of a blog displays all published posts in reverse chronological order with the most recently published post on top. When we publish a post on WordPress software the software automatically creates the same entry in the Archives, and on the dynamic (automatically updating) Categories and Tags pages in accord with the Categories and Tags we assign to that post.

    So when we create custom menu and add the dynamic (automatically updating) category pages to that custom menu we create the appearance (not the reality) of posting to more than one page.

    You need to be aware that:

    1. There are differences between posts and pages described here
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page/

    2. There are differences between static pages we bloggers create https://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/ that will not automatically update, and dynamic category pages created by the software when you publish a post which will automatically update https://en.support.wordpress.com/category-pages/.

    3. We organize posts by category assignment prior to publication. http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/ and when we publish posts the dynamic category pages they automatically display on are determined by the categories we assign to them.

    So the process you need to use is:

    a. Assign Categories to your Posts. https://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories

    b. Create a custom menu https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#1-create-a-custom-menu

    c. Add only the dynamic category page links into the custom menu that you want to appear in that menu https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/view-all/#adding-category-pages and arrange them as you wish them to appear https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/view-all/#changing-the-order-creating-sub-menus

    d. Create pages and sub-pages for static content, not for posts https://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/

    e. Add any custom links and other items like static pages and sub-pages into your custom menu
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/view-all/#adding-custom-links https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/view-all/#adding-pages
    and arrange them as you wish them to appear https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/view-all/#changing-the-order-creating-sub-menus

  • Unknown's avatar
    thejadezone · Member ·

    OK, I’ve read all the links and now I’m just more confused than ever.

    Specifically I’ve read the Adding Category Pages (pasted below) which seems to indicate that I can have all of my blog posts appear on the front page (which is not a static page) and still assign a category to specific posts (i.e. vlogs) so that they appear filtered under that category in the menu.

    So this is exactly the way my site is already setup. Except like I originally said, my blog posts no longer appear on the front page when I publish them unless I select ‘Stick to Front Page’ under Sticky in the Advanced Settings. And now when I do this the posts say ‘Featured’ at the top instead of the post date.

    How do I get a hold of WordPress.com support? Can a Happiness Engineer look into this for me and let me know why things are not working?

    Thanks.

    Adding Category Pages (from: https://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/2/)

    — Unlike your main blog page, which displays all of the posts on your site, a Category Page will allow you to create a filtered blog feed that displays only the posts from within a specific category. If you have a lot of categories, you can choose to view your most used, or search for a category based on its name in the search tab. Only categories with at least one published post in them will appear in the list.

    Simply check the box of the categories you’d like to add, then click Add to Menu. —

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    When we need Staff help with issues Volunteers have not been able to resolve like this one we type modlook into the sidebar tags on our forum threads. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Then we subscribe to this thread so we are notified when they respond. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.

  • Unknown's avatar
    chrisrudzki · Member ·

    I can have all of my blog posts appear on the front page (which is not a static page) and still assign a category to specific posts (i.e. vlogs) so that they appear filtered under that category in the menu

    Yes, this is accurate. :)

    Except like I originally said, my blog posts no longer appear on the front page when I publish them unless I select ‘Stick to Front Page’ under Sticky in the Advanced Settings. And now when I do this the posts say ‘Featured’ at the top instead of the post date.

    Sticky posts will appear at the top of your blog page, regardless of when they were published. There shouldn’t be any need to mark posts as sticky, just to get them on the front page. Can you try removing the “sticky” option from all your posts? I’ll have a look, and investigate why they’re not appearing on your front page, as you say.

  • Unknown's avatar
    thejadezone · Member ·

    Thank you for the quick reply.

    I have removed the ”sticky” option on all the posts that had it. Those posts are showing on the front page with the appropriate posting date.

    I then created a new test post, and it posted to the front page.

    I don’t know if you’ve done anything or made any changes in my account – but everything is working perfectly fine now. I had done a test post last night and even it wasn’t appearing on the front page.

    So everything is now in perfect working order! :)

    Again, thanks for the quick reply and for your help! :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    chrisrudzki · Member ·

    @thejadezone: Depending on how many posts you mark ‘sticky’, it’s possible to cover your homepage, so that subsequent posts end up on subsequent pages. In any case, I’m glad to hear you’re all set now. :)

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