As a blogger user, I have an option as to how many previous posts appear on my front page. I think at this point, it's like 12. Some sites (example, 101 Cookbooks or C&Z) have one. Some have more.
My question is, how many do you have, and why did you opt for that number?
I personally find when there is only one post on the front page, that I spend less time at a site and have a harder time finding past posts I was interested in. Are you like that too? Archive browsing is rare for me...
Just curious!
Thanks ev'body!
Rachael
This question brought to you by Rachael
15 comments:
I originally picked 8 because it's always been my lucky number. I've noticed, however, that when I've done several longer posts, the page gets a bit much, so am considering reducing that. The other option would be to use the "more" feature so it only displays the first paragraph or so of each post, but I've never really liked that when I read blogs - it always feels like when you're reading a magazine article and have to suddenly turn to page 132...
I feel the same way about "more" and honestly, I dont often click it...
I have 10 and I chose that for a couple of reasons. One is that when I'm reading I like to be able to scroll through a few posts at a time.
I also thought that this was a good number for readers of my blog to: get a sense of the blog, since I have differrnt types of posts and this number should show a variety; be able to check in once or twice a week and get caught up all at once; provide visual interest. Sometimes this does make my first page rather long but no one is forced to go all the way to the bottom! :-)
I don't really care for the "more" buttons either, although I will click them on some blogs.
~ B
I choose 7 because it makes the page look more uniform to have the posts run as long as the side bars.
I'm with Michele in that I originally chose my number of posts (5) based on the way it looks with my sidebars. But I admit to changing my number about once every couple months dependent on what's up there. Or, for instance, if I know that I am having a big influx of new readers I may change the number -- either to give readers more posts or to bump a kind of non-pertinent post off the front page.
Rachael,
I keep six posts on the main page because that typically shows everything I've posted in the last (roughly) 10 days.
I use a more button to keep the main page down to a browsable size. I like to "more" capability because it makes it easy to scroll down past a post that doesn't interest me.
I have 10, because it's 2 weeks worth of posts for the most part.
I assume that the folks who want to read me regularly are picking up the feed and the others that come are there via links or people who bookmark and visit infrequently.
I haven't had any complaints about having "too much" on the landing page yet.
Movable Type allows me to choose how many days posts will remain and I have mine set to 11. This is usually about 6 posts or so. Nobody cares about blog info that goes past a few weeks do they?
I think I have mine set to 2 weeks.
I set it on the premise some people may only visit once a week. Then I gave them a week leeway.
Its interesting to me that some people gave it thought, and some just went with the flow.
Leads me to wonder, does anyone find it obnoxious to have too many posts on the front page> Does it affect loading?
Since I am now an expert on dial up since that is what the effing effers at SBC have just reduced our internet service to (despite the fact our DSL worked ok, they said it wasn't good enough to qualify to be part of their service so they cancelled it and offered dial up instead) and I load my homepage often (2 weeks of posts, lots of pictures), yes it is slow to read the whole page, but it always loads the latest thing first and fairly quickly. so there is always something to read while the rest of the page keeps loading.
I havent particularly noticed anyone with less posts loading the latest post any quicker.
I picked three because I think Jen suggested this as an initial number, (I've only been blogging since March.) It says on the sides titles for more posts recently and onday I hope to have a search thingy.
The way your site is set up it looks fine to have loads of posts, but for me when I am way way down at the bottom I miss the side bars. For sites that only have one I think, "do I really want to go meandering around today?" Although one of my favorite sites, 101 Cookbooks, is like this and I feel like her posts are well written and specific enough that they pack more of a chewy punch than a million posts which say similar things.
I have Wordpress display 4 posts because I tend to post biggish 600x400 pixel, medium res photos. These take a while for dialup users (like my dad) to load, and it's even slower the longer my "home" page is.
The bigger your index file (i.e. your "home page"), the more bandwidth you use per visitor.
This is a non-factor unless you have a really high traffic site that you host yourself (as opposed to a free hosted service like Blogger / Typepad). If you exceed your monthly bandwidth cap, cut down on the pages per post.
Interesting discussion! I keep about a week's worth on the main page. But I suspect that whether visitors check out archive pages is a function of the site. Because I A Veggie Venture as a 'resource' vs a 'record', I spend considerable effort building/maintaining a multi-faceted index, what I call the Recipe Box. And the stats say that visitors really use it -- at 5pm, visits spike and someone'll cruise, say, four or five broccoli recipes. About half the first-time visitors hit 20 or 30 pages. I've even had people go through every single post, day by day. It's hard work, fussy, but I think it's absolutely critical to what I'm trying to achieve. I suspect that others (say Elise's Simply Recipes) archive may get similar attention. Thoughts???
Well, seems I have the highest number of posts on my front page (30 days worth), but I'm also on dial-up so I figure nobody's computer is uploading any slower than mine. : )
Sam is right; the first stuff loads quickly so you have something to look at right away. I used to only have 10 days. I switched to 30 (you can have up to 99 on blogger I believe) because my posts are mainly Daily Farm Photos so they don't take up much room (although, yes, the photos do take a while to load).
I haven't had any complaints (at least not to my face. : ) I chose this many to give new visitors a good idea of what my blog is about. Sometimes I don't put up anything related to food for several days (even though I consider Farmgirl Fare a food blog). Also, it doesn't take long to scroll through the photos and find a story or recipe.
And daily visitors don't even have to wait for the entire page to laod if they just want to see that day's photo.
Also, the only way to see a series of past daily photos is to click on the "month" archives, and I'm not sure how many people do that (at least first time visitors who may not even understand how my site 'works.')
P.S. Alanna's site and system at A Veggie Venture ROCKS!
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