Thread: [FIX] Wordpress not showing complete posts in archives, tags, & categories

I recently started a new WP blog (3.0.3) and came across a rather content killing feature.... they only show excerpts of your content when clicking through Categories, Tags, and even the Archive. This would not be so bad if they actually hinted at the missing content, but in many cases they do not, especially when there are images involved.

The fix for this is pretty simple...

edit loop.php; find:
<?php if ( is_archive() || is_search() ) : // Display excerpts for archives and search. ?>
(this occurs twice)
change both occurances to:
<?php if ( is_search() ) : // Display excerpts for search. ?>
this still leaves the search results as excerpts.

Which is the answer given to me on the WP forums by an outstanding member named alchymyth.

It was also suggested that befre that is done I create a child skin of the default TwentyTen theme so that when it comes time to upgrade I have the changes at hand... but I forgot to do that, so meh...

Either way, this only takes a few moments of time...

I griped on the WP site and said this SHOULD be an option, and it does seem that many others do agree...so with luck, this is only a temp fix

Enjoy!

Are you talking on the admin side?
Or the actual blog?

Because I just checked my blogs (yes, upgraded to 3.0.3) and everything comes up okay.

Maybe it is the default template of wp only that does this?

yeah, its the twentyten theme that does it.

And the partial results (excerpt) show for those searching through the categories, tags, and even archives.

I don't get it. For SEO purposes, I would rather NOT have the full blog post content shown on categories, tags, and archives. If you have the full blog post on anything but the actual blog post URL that would be duplicate content, which is not a good thing.

In fact, I go out of my way to make sure that only the full blog post shows up on the blog post URL.

I think you got good advice already to make a copy of the TwentyTen theme where you edited it, since this is likely to be over-written with future updates to WP.

WP introduced the concept of the canonical URL to tell the search engines which page is the main one, so the SEO may be OK for Google. But I also think that archive pages should logically show excerpts of posts with a read more link.

Originally Posted by bhartzer

I don't get it. For SEO purposes, I would rather NOT have the full blog post content shown on categories, tags, and archives. If you have the full blog post on anything but the actual blog post URL that would be duplicate content, which is not a good thing.

In fact, I go out of my way to make sure that only the full blog post shows up on the blog post URL.

I'm opposed to ANY SEO that actually makes it harder for the end user... and this makes it harder for the end user.

When you look at a blog that has a static first page and navigate deeper into it, you'll find nothing of content when said content is hidden.

I know there is more to each post, but Tom, Dick, and Harry would have NO CLUE unless they clicked again....and that is my problem. So yeah, if they found a link to the individual post, great & swell, they see the entire thing... but if they fall into the main page, want to look deeper, or get linked to a category, they will be missing out on a lot.

Originally Posted by Qryztufre

I'm opposed to ANY SEO that actually makes it harder for the end user... and this makes it harder for the end user.

This may be bit of a foolish viewpoint. You won't have very much free traffic or users if you keep duplicating your content multiple times throughout the site. The idea is to drive traffic to the main article page. You do that by eliminating the duplicates of articles.

I don't see how it makes it harder for the end user to click on one link. That is the way that most blogs are set up. And if you are using SEO properly, the users should be driven directly to the article page.

I have to agree with bhartzer and Andy, but it is your blog.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

This may be bit of a foolish viewpoint. You won't have very much free traffic or users if you keep duplicating your content multiple times throughout the site. The idea is to drive traffic to the main article page. You do that by eliminating the duplicates of articles.

If members are driven to the main page (which by rights most links would be pointing to) and they want to actually view your content, if they click deeper into the site and see three lines out of 15 and no images, then do you honestly think they would do anything other then clicking the back button twice to get back to the search engine? The same would apply to finding the full/original version of a given post and then wanting to look at other places in the site.

On a forum, when you click a search, it lists things by title & title alone. When a person does that, they know they must click the title to see the content. When a person goes to a blog and wants to see more, they are already pre-programed to know that the content will be there in one looooong list.When they get to that list and there is nothing there but very very short bits of info with no indication there is more, then they will assume that is it, and look no deeper.

I don't see how it makes it harder for the end user to click on one link. That is the way that most blogs are set up. And if you are using SEO properly, the users should be driven directly to the article page.

When a site is set up to actually be read and browsed through, rather then just pushing a single article, then that is where the problem is, as I mentioned above.

Some of the longer entries with a lot of text have a "Continue reading -->" link on the bottom, but for shorter articles or one with pictures, that link is NOT there, which is where the real problem lies.

The blog I am referring to is for a local resaurant, which has no actual articles on it....but does give a tour of the place, has bits about it's employees, and other location specific information. Its not to reach the top of SERPs or draw in a lot of money... but even if it was, if I went to your blog and found an article worthy of being read, I'd want to read more. If I clicked deeper into your blog and just saw a bunch of short entries, some that had a link to read more and some that did not, I'd have no choice but to assume that there was nothing more to read on those short entries.

Do ya see the trouble in that?