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Here’s a simple answer for the difference between WordPress posts and pages:

• Post: short, time sensitive article of less than timeless consequence, article written on a time line basis. Characteristics: more time sensitive, usually under 1000 words (highly dependent on context or subject matter).
• Page: long article with long-lived content. Relatively time-insensitive. For example, article on WordPress become irrelevant when WordPress is no longer used. These articles may need to be kept current with up-to-date information. Received opinion puts pages over 1000 words, but again, that’s partly a function of context or subject matter.

These definitions are more or less the “received opinion” in the WordPress (or blogging world). That is, if you were to ask a wide range of prominent bloggers, I believe they would more or less not disagree with these definitions.

The truth is a little more complicated

But “not disagreeing” isn’t quite the same as agreeing.

If you take a look at the writing on a couple of dozen prominent blogs, you’ll find they don’t quite match these simplistic definitions either. In reality, the difference between a WordPress post and a WordPress page is considerably more complicated.

Financial blogs such as Global Economic Analysis and RGE Monitor routinely post articles in the 1,2,3000 word range… which are extremely time sensitive. And they post daily at this length. “Pages” in this field run 3000-5000 words. Tanta’s incredible series entitled The Compleat Ubernerd is an excellent example.

On the other hand, productivity, marketing and “make money” blogs typically limit posts to around 500 words. (Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneur’s Journey is a welcome exception to this.) Quite often, pages on these types of sites tend to go out as small ebooks or bribes for newsletter signups.

In short, context matters. Your goal for your blog should drive how you choose to separate posts and pages.

And a useful mechanical distinction…

The “page vs. post” question recently came up on the East Bay WordPress meetup mailing list. After some discussion, Anet Dunne pointed out the obvious:

• Posts go on the blog.
• Pages go on menus.

Simple, right? Wish I had thought of that.

Such an easy, obvious distinction to make, Anet even put it on her website banner, which you can see her Blogging for Business using WordPress.com blog.

Given all this discussion, there is still a set of articles that you need as pages, and they are practically required.

The “standard suite” of WordPress pages

The opinion on required pages for an effective business website is near-unanimous. You will need a way for readers to contact you, and very often it makes the most sense to have a contact page designed expressly for that purpose. You may need Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and more. Some sort of “About” page is regarded as critical. All of these pages are outside the current discussion. These pages are discussed in more depth in “Web Site Infrastructure — Required posts and pages for your WordPress blog.”