Technical Writing 101: The Blog vs. Blog Post Distinction Every Developer Should Know

As developers and technical writers, precision matters in our code and our communication. Yet there's a common terminology mistake that even experienced tech professionals make: using "blog" when they mean "blog post." Let's debug this linguistic issue.

The Technical Architecture of Content

Think of it like your application architecture:

• A blog is your production environment
• Blog posts are your deployments
• Articles/posts are your individual features

Just as you wouldn't call a single function your "entire codebase," calling a single post your "blog" misrepresents the structural hierarchy of content.

Historical Context: Version 1.0

The terminology traces back to 1997 when Jorn Barger coined "weblog" for his site Robot Wisdom. Peter Merholz later refactored it to "blog" in 1999. From the initial deployment:

• "Weblog/blog" = The platform
• "Post/entry" = Individual content units

Impact on Technical Documentation

This distinction particularly matters in:

1. API Documentation When documenting content APIs, the hierarchy matters:

   blog/
   ├── posts/
   │   ├── post-1
   │   └── post-2
   └── metadata

1. Content Management
   Modern headless CMS systems maintain this structure in their data models and APIs.

2. Analytics Implementation
   Tracking metrics requires clear parent-child relationships between blogs and their posts.

Best Practices for Technical Communication

Use these patterns in your technical writing:

✅ DO:

• "I maintain a technical blog about system architecture"
• "My latest blog post covers Docker optimization"
• "Check out my recent post on API design"

❌ DON'T:

• "I wrote a new blog about React hooks"
• "Check out my three blogs on microservices"
• "I publish blogs about DevOps"

I wrote a short article on the "blog" and "post" evolution of terms you can read for free on medium.