We have another opinion poll for you to opine and feedbackize (verb). Currently all deals remain on the front page of the blog. I move expired offers at the start of each day, so expired offers can cluster together, making it easier to quickly skim and scan. But with WordPress there is more flexibility. So the question is, do you like to see the expired offers on the front page, or only live offers? If you have a more complicated answer, please leave a comment or use the online contract form.
The way to show live offers only is to create a WordPress category or tag, and include/exclude that category/tag from being shown on the front page.
Note that expired offers do not mark themselves expired automatically. I have to manually edit the posts regardless, so even if this is implemented, I would still need to mark them manually to make them disappear from the front page (and edit the category/tag to indicate something is live/dead). So I don’t know if having this feature would create additional confusion than be helpful, since expired offers would be shown under “live offers” until I get around to editing them out. I can’t do the 24×7 non-stop blogging of the old days, so they could stay like that for hours.
A third option would be to show all offers on the frontpage, but have an option in the menus that when you click on, you only see the non-expired offers. Something like a “LIVE DEALS ONLY” button. This would be done the same way as above, with a WordPress category/tag. Since this would be extra work on both me and WordPress, I don’t know if it makes sense logistically to do that if a small/smaller percentage of visitors will utilize it.
So why I am asking this? Some like to see expired offers, to see what was offered and what they missed. Others only want to see live offers. Others want to switch between the two. So I am trying to figure out whether I need to make adjustments or not.
As a reader and sometimes shopper, I could find a button to show live deals handy, especially during the frenetic holidays and closeouts seasons. However, I realize you can’t (and shouldn’t have to) play nursemaid 24/7. It really could get confusing if you usually tag dead deals promptly, but then can’t for awhile. That’s why I selected the simplest response.
I sometimes research what something has sold for in the past, so I hesitate to say this next, but it’s a factor to be considered. As I’m sure you know by now, WP is built on a big, very powerful database. Keeping all the old, expired deals could lead to serious bloat a few years on. Because of that, you might find it advantageous to delete posts on expired non-camera deals — things like flash memory cards/USB sticks, batteries, tripods, magazine subscriptions, home/studio gear, etc.
Finally, an idea which, if my hunch proves correct, could be a big help. I suspect that somewhere in the vast inventory of WP plugins there is at least a couple that can delete, hide or alter a post based on a specified date and time. I say that because some commercial Web sites use WP to sell things, and need a way to automatically delete or hide a sale post at a specified time. Such a plug-in wouldn’t help in all cases, but in ones where you know how long a sale runs, it could be a great work and time saver.
Thanks for the detailed and helpful feedback! I am only beginning to scratch the surface with WordPress. At the same time, I can very easily get carried away and install every single plug-in ever and turn this into an overloaded hog, so I have to show restraint with plug-ins.
The problem with hiding a post is that people who may have had it bookmarked as something they are researching, they would get a 404 and create confusion. It’s on the to-do list to figure it out!
Thanks for the feedback!
Re: hiding posts. You did mention an unhide option for those who want to see it all, right?
Re: plugins. I doubt you could get all the plugins into one WP installation. The thought reminds me of a fad of a few decades back when high school and college kids would see how many bodies they could cram into a VW beetle, a telephone booth or what have you. Yes, like anything plugins can be overdone. I had 18-20 on my blog at one time, although several were only activated from time to time, for a particular purpose, then deactivated. WP handled them without a hitch or any apparent unwanted side effect. I’m not sure how many is too many, but I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way. 😉
yes, the hide/unhide would basically be a tag or category, so to see expired or live-only (depending on how it would be implemented), one would just need to click or bookmark that tag/category to hide/unhide.
Maybe I need to create a test blog and add every single plug-in ever created to get it out of my system 🙂 The problem is it’s harder to figure out the usefulness and issues of plug-ins on a test blog.