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When the Load More option is selected under Archive Settings, a button appears at the bottom of archive pages. Clicking it fetches the next batch of posts and appends them to the page without a full reload. Here is what happens under the hood and what you can control.
How It Works
- The page loads with the first batch of posts and a Load More button.
- When a visitor clicks the button, Aurora sends a background request to WordPress, passing the current query parameters, the page number, and a security token.
- WordPress runs the query, renders the next batch of posts using the same archive layout template that is currently active, and returns the HTML.
- Aurora’s JavaScript inserts the new posts directly into the existing post grid and updates the button to point to the next page.
- When there are no more posts to load, the button disappears.
The result is seamless pagination. Visitors never leave the page, and the post grid grows in place.
What Controls It
- Posts per load — set by the Posts Per Page setting under Customize → Layouts → Archive Layout. Each button click loads this many posts.
- Layout template — the loaded posts use the same archive layout that is active globally, or the Nova per-term override if one is set. The AJAX response renders posts in exactly the same format as the initial page load.
- Query context — the current category, tag, date, search query, or author context is preserved. Clicking Load More on a category page loads more posts from that category only.
Enabling Load More
- Go to Appearance → Customize → Layouts → Archive Layout.
- Set Show More Posts Option to Load More.
- Click Publish.
See How to Configure Archive Settings for the full list of archive options.
Load More and standard pagination are mutually exclusive. You pick one per site. If you need numbered page links for SEO reasons (so search engines can crawl individual pages), standard pagination is the better choice. Load More is better for reader experience on content-heavy blogs.