Website Health

Tip of the Week: Finding a Specific WordPress Post

It sometimes seems hard to find the specific WordPress post you're looking for, but learning to search WordPress makes it easy.

A blue graphic for "Tip of the Week"

After you’ve been posting articles for a year, or if you have an ecommerce store with a load of products, it sometimes seems hard to find the that one thing you’re looking for. But actually WordPress makes it easy — as long as you know how to find it.

A page on WordPress for Advanced Custom Fields

First of all, there’s a search box for each of the posts/products/pages/whatever. When you try something in that box, it’ll search your site for only that type of thing specifically. So, on this screenshot, If I were looking for the Tomato-Cucumber Salad, I could type that in the top search box, and it would find it for me. But if I were looking for the About page, it wouldn’t find it, because this is the Menu Items only. I’d have to look under the Pages section and use that search box.

The next thing you have on each list of posts, etc., are the filtering options. Above the Bulk Actions dropdown, you can see the options for All, Published, or Trash. (There will also be options for Draft and Pending Review if you have posts in those states.) This would let you see only everything that is published or, if you were waiting to publish something, you could see those under Drafts.

You can also find anything by the date it was created by using the All Dates dropdown. Each column header, in this case Title or Date, can also be sorted frontwards or backwards. Just click on that column header, and it will rearrange accordingly. This is really helpful on your blog: You can order all your posts by Title, Author, Categories, or Tags, the number of comments each has, or the date that it was posted (see screenshot below).

A page on WordPress for Advanced Custom Fields

If you were to click any of the Categories, Tags, or the Author Name, it would take you to a page that lists only those posts associated with that term. You can also use the dropdown at the top to get the list of all posts in that category. So, say I wanted to see all of the posts that I’ve written about the High Point Market: I could either go to the top where it says View All Categories and choose the one I want, or I could find a post that has that category under the column header.

Finding a WordPress post among all your posts can be very simple and easy — as long as you know how to search.

About Andrew

Andrew is of two minds. Part designer, part code-junkie, Andrew brings a subtle eye for detail to every project. A dangerous business, admittedly, since it requires exploration of both the left and right brain and few people return from that perilous expedition. Speaking of exploring, after college Andrew worked for the Peace Corp teaching in the African nation of Benin. After Africa, Andrew moved to London where his wife finished a Master''s degree in History, before returning to Birmingham and Infomedia. Today they've embarked on another lifelong adventure—a beautiful daughter, Olivia. See more articles from Andrew Searles

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