# Articles

> The second kind of thing a site holds, and the one question that tells it from a page. An article belongs to nothing, so the page listing it owns nothing.
>
> From the MightyBuilder documentation: https://docs.mightybuilder.ai/dynamic/articles

An article is the second kind of thing a site holds. A **page** is part of the
site's shape — Home, About, Services, Contact. An **article** is something that
arrives: a blog post, a news item, a case study, a recipe.

## Which one is it

One question decides it.

**Would a visitor look for it in the nav, or in a list?** In the nav, it is a
page. In a list, newest first, it is an article.

You will not get this badly wrong, and nothing is stuck: an article and a page
are the same document underneath, with the same editor, the same settings and
the same revisions.

## Where articles live

Every article sits under one address — the *slug* of the `articles` collection
your site was born with:

```
Articles                     /articles/a-year-of-sourdough
```

Change it to `blog` and every article moves to `/blog/…` together, each one
leaving a redirect behind at the next Publish. Leave it empty and articles sit
at the root, `/a-year-of-sourdough`, competing with your pages for an address.

## An article belongs to nothing

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is what makes articles simpler
than they look.

An article is not *inside* anything. No page owns it. The page that lists your
articles is an ordinary page with a loop on it — rename it, move it, delete it,
and not one article moves.

That means:

- there can be **no** listing page, **one**, or **three** — your homepage
  showing the latest four, `/blog` showing all of them, and a page that shows
  three;
- an article's address never changes because a page changed;
- there is nothing to choose when you create one. Open **Articles** in the
  rail, press **New item**, and write it.

## Listing them

```liquid
{% assign posts = collections.articles | sort: "date" | reverse %}
{% for post in posts limit: 6 %}
  <a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
{% endfor %}
```

Sorted by date, newest first, because the list otherwise comes in the order you
arrange the articles in. No filter, because there is nothing to filter by. See
[A blog index](/dynamic/a-blog-index) for the whole thing with a card.

## Pages still nest

Articles being flat does not change pages. A Services page with Roofing and
Gutters inside it is still a page and its children, still addressed
`/services/roofing`, and still listed with
`where: "parent", "services"`. That is the right shape for a section of the
site — part of its structure, in a deliberate order.

Use a section for what belongs to the site's shape, and articles for what
arrives.

## What you get either way

Both kinds get addresses, redirects when you rename one, drafts and Publish, the
trash, publish history, metadata, pictures and a featured image. Nothing is
missing from an article that a page has, except the two things about structure:
it never sits under a page, and it cannot be your homepage. Articles can sit
under one another only if you switch on **Hierarchical** for the collection,
which a blog rarely wants.