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A client asked me recently how to affect the ways that posts show chronologically in WordPress. By default, WordPress shows the latest publish post first, the next most recent post next, and so on. This is affected mostly by the date at the time the post was published is set to the date of the post by default, even though the post may exist elsewhere in time chronologically. This is especially true if you are moving old content from another source to a new WordPress site.
How to affect chronology of posts in WordPress
There are at least two ways to do this. In this case we are just talking about posts, as WordPress pages use a different way of ordering.
- Edit a post.
- In the area where it says publish/update, look for “Published On:” where you can edit the publish date. The most recent dated posts will show first, the next most recent next, etc. This will allow you to set articles from 2005 as having been published then.
- In your particular case, you may also want an especially important post to show up first regardless of date, and so you have a second option:
How to make a post sticky in WordPress
- In the same publish area, look for the “visibility:” area, where you can set whether a post is visible or not.
- In this area, you can also set a post as “sticky” which allows it to show first until you turn off the option.
- Click on the checkbox next to “Stick this post to the front page” and it will show as the first post until you change the setting back.
- Make sure to click ok and update, or the change will not be saved.
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