DISQUS

Lorelle · 3 years ago

Thanks for the link and I also recommend Writing With Post Excerpts and Feed Excerpts in Mind for those who want to use excerpts on pages that showcase more than one post (multi-post page views). There are some serious things you need to consider as you write your posts if you are writing with excerpts.

If you are using the WordPress template tag which replaces the_content() with the_excerpt()

Lorelle · 3 years ago

Yikes, half my comment disappeared. If you find the rest of it, can you fix it. If you don't, I'll repost. I didn't use any specific code, so this is very odd. Thanks.

Ben Yoskovitz · 3 years ago

Hey Lorelle -- very odd. Take a look now and let me know if it's OK.

I'm not sure if the comment includes everything or not.

I have noticed something weird with typing/coding links manually, where it adds "x" in front of "href" on all my links unless I click the HTML link while writing a post and then "update".

Let me test that in comments:

Where Is Basil?

Maybe that's what messed up your comment...

Lorelle · 3 years ago

I didn't have any links or code in the rest of the comment, and I'm really fussy about how I add code, so this is a strange one. Anyway, here is the rest as best as I can remember.

If you are using the WordPress template tag which replaces the_content() with the_excerpt(), WordPress automatically takes the first 120 words of your post and showcases it as the excerpt. If you don't make a point or summary about what you are going to be talking about in the first 120 words, your excerpt is fairly useless. If you don't include keywords in those first 120 words, search engines also have trouble identifying content within the excerpt page.

To include excerpts in WordPress, there are two ways to "write" those excerpts. Either make the first 120 words of your posts count, or write what we call an explicit excerpt, which means use the excerpt form in the Write Post panel to write what you want your excerpt to be. It can be the same words or different from what is in your post, summarizing the content.

This means you have to think about what you write in your excerpts when you use them as they now carry a lot more weight with your readers, search engines, and excerpted feeds.

- - - - -

Nothing mind blowing but I thought it was odd that it would truncate a comment like that. Hopefully, all of this will get through and I will feel relieved that I had my say. ;-)

Ben Yoskovitz · 3 years ago

Hey Lorelle -- looks like it got through OK!

Since looking at excerpts more closely I've tried to remember and write them while doing a new post, but I'm not in the habit, so I keep forgetting. As such most of the excerpts are the first 120 words, but one or two of them are specifically written.

Instigator Blog is still too young to really notice a difference in any way and I haven't done it consistently but I'm going to try and keep writing the excerpts to make them more valuable.

In some ways KNOWING the first 120 words are taken forces me to try and say something useful in those first 120 words instead of all preamble towards the point...

Karen · 2 years ago

Thanks for the help! I'm just beginning with WordPress on my own domain. I'm searching for a theme that will let me put a picture of a goldfish in a bowl at the top for the header. I tried changing a header and it got too complicated for this newbie. http://www.chatbugkaren.com I haven't done much yet except lots of reading in WordPress support.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Karen - I've got some URLs to theme resources here:
http://www.instigatorblog.com/how-to-pick-the-b...

That might help you find something that works for you!

Karen · 2 years ago

Thanks so much! I'm heading over there.

Genesis Davies · 2 years ago

I´m just getting into using wordpress and blogging and yours is the first article that I have found which actually explains things in basic English, instead of assuming that we all know everything already! Thanks.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Genesis - glad I could help. I hope you enjoy the content here and stick around. I've written a few articles about WordPress as well as others on blogging in more general terms.