Comments on: WordPress: The Art of Avoiding Duplicate Content

By: Andrew Keir

Andrew Keir — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:16:15 +0000

Hi Dev,

I’ve got the excerpt function working as intended now, still havn’t quite got the if/else going though… It’s ok though, I’d best spend the time writing the 260 excerpts and just swapping it over instead of mucking around with my php.

Thanks for the advice and help links.

By: Dev Duff

Dev Duff — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:47:08 +0000

Hello Andrew,

First of all, really sorry for responding so late.

About the question(s) you asked, there are couple of things you can do. If you simply replace the_content() with the_excerpt() in the Main Index Template (index.php) file in your theme, it will automatically show the excerpt of your posts. If you do not provide any excerpt within your articles, it doesn’t matter. WordPress will automatically pickup the first paragraph of your article and display an excerpt.

Now, to beautify or customize your “excerpt”, there are couple of things you can do:
1). You may use this article to edit your theme: http://codex.wordpress.org/Fun.....he_excerpt
2). You can use a plugin that can help you customize the way excerpts display on the homepage.

About this specific question: “I’m not terribly familiar with the if and else usages. What I’d like to do is if an excerpt exists, show it, else show the_content and use the existing more tag.”

Answer: WordPress will handle this by default. If you provide an excerpt within each article, WordPress will display it. If you do not provide an excerpt within your articles, WordPress will automatically display the first paragraph of your article. So all in all, you have to just change the_content() to the_excerpt(). Job done!

I hope I was able to assist you. If not, please feel free to ask questions. I will be happy to assist you.

By: Andrew Keir

Andrew Keir — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:01:26 +0000

Hi DevDuff,

I have 1 little tweak on this that I wan’t to implement, I wonder if you can help.

At the moment my blog is using the_content, and I would like to change this to an excerpt. I have a few hundred posts without excerpts so it will obviously take some time to do.

I’m not terribly familiar with the if and else usages. What I’d like to do is if an excerpt exists, show it, else show the_content and use the existing more tag.

This was I can add excerpts over the next few weeks while immediately reaping the benefits on updated posts. I hope that makes sense… Thanks in advance for any advice.

By: scogy

scogy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:53:40 +0000

I have an iphone 3G, and I have lots songs in my iphone, because it is synced with my computer(iTunes), what if I bought a new computer, how do you keep your old songs in your iphone? Or shall I say would you be able to sync your iphone with a new computer without losing any old songs? Many thanks!

By: Dev Duff

Dev Duff — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:31:22 +0000

I’m glad to know that the article was helpful. Thanks for the kind words
Your comment is full of motivation, I will share more experiences in the upcoming posts.
Regards.

By: Miss L.

Miss L. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:18:00 +0000

Thank you so much for posting about avoiding duplicate content. I am new to using WordPress and have very limited knowledge of editing php code. I love the Amazing Grace theme you referred to but thought I was going to have to change themes. I just couldn’t figure out what part of the php code I needed to change regarding excerpt. Your examples shown above and explanation was very helpful to correcting the problem I was having.

Great job and thanks again for such a detailed explanation. Now, I’ll know how to correct this with any WordPress theme I decide to work with.