Shopify Blog Posts Not Showing? Understanding Horizon Theme's Infinite Scroll & Pagination

Hey store owners!

I recently saw a great discussion pop up in the Shopify Community that I just had to share some insights on. It's a common head-scratcher, especially for those of you with a growing content library: "Why are only 50 of my 166 blog posts visible on my Shopify store?" The original poster, sanderswoodworking, was using the Horizon theme, and this question really highlights a crucial point about how themes handle content and what you can do about it.

Unpacking the "Missing" Blog Posts in Horizon Theme

It's totally understandable to feel a bit confused (or even alarmed!) when you know you've put a ton of effort into creating blog content, only to see a fraction of it on your main blog page. Sanderswoodworking had 166 posts, but only 50 were showing up initially. This is a classic pagination question!

However, as one of our helpful community members, tim_1, quickly pointed out, if you're using the Horizon theme, there's a good chance there's actually "nothing to fix" in the way you might expect. Many modern Shopify themes, including Horizon, leverage something called infinite scrolling. What does that mean?

Well, it means that while your page might load with, say, 50 articles initially, as a visitor scrolls down, the theme automatically fetches and displays more posts. It keeps loading them until all available articles are shown. Tim_1 even shared a screenshot confirming that all 167 posts were visible after scrolling on sanderswoodworking's site.

So, before you dive into any code, always check your theme's default behavior, especially if you're on a modern theme like Horizon. Just scroll down and see if your posts appear!

The Performance Trade-off: Why Not Show Everything At Once?

Even if you could display all 166 (or more!) blog posts on a single page immediately, is it a good idea? Another community member, mastroke, brought up a really important point: "displaying all blogs at once may slow down the page loading speed."

This is a critical consideration for your store's SEO and user experience. A slow-loading page can frustrate visitors and even hurt your search engine rankings. Infinite scrolling is often a compromise, giving users access to all content without the initial load penalty of hundreds of articles and images.

When You Need More Control: Adjusting Pagination Limits with Code

Sometimes, infinite scrolling isn't what you or your customers prefer, or maybe you're not on the Horizon theme and your theme truly is limiting the posts. If you want to explicitly increase the number of blog posts shown on a page (up to a certain limit), you can do so with a small code edit. Our expert, Robert_Kanaan, provided excellent step-by-step instructions for this.

Important Note: Always, always, DUPLICATE YOUR THEME FIRST! Never work directly on your live theme. This gives you a safe sandbox to test changes without impacting your customers.

Here's how to increase the blog post display limit:

1. Duplicate Your Theme:
   • From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
   • Find your published/live theme, click the ... (three dots) button, and select Duplicate.
   • Wait for the duplication process to complete.
2. Edit the Duplicated Theme's Code:
   • Under the "Draft themes" section, find your duplicated theme.
   • Click the ... button next to it, and select Edit code.
3. Locate the Blog Section File:
   • In the code editor, open the file sections/main-blog.liquid. This is typically where blog post display logic resides.
4. Add the Pagination Tag:
   • Look for a section similar to this (it might not be identical, but the assign items_on_page and for article in blog.articles are key):

     {% liquid
       assign items_
     %}
     
     {% for article in blog.articles %}
     

   • Right above that block, add the paginate tag. For example, to show up to 250 articles, you'd add:

     {%- paginate blog.articles by 250 -%}
     
       {% liquid
         assign items_
       %}
     
       {% for article in blog.articles %}
     

5. Add the Closing Pagination Tag:
   • Scroll down to find the matching closing tag for your loop, which will look like this:

     {% endfor %}
     

   • Immediately after it, add the closing paginate tag:

       {% endfor %}
     {%- endpaginate -%}
     

6. Review the Structure: Your modified code section should now resemble this:

   {%- paginate blog.articles by 250 -%}
     {% liquid
       assign items_
     %}
   
     {% for article in blog.articles %}
       ...
     {% endfor %}
   {%- endpaginate -%}
   

7. Save Your Changes.
8. Test Your Changes:
   • Go back to Online Store > Themes.
   • Scroll down to "Draft themes" and click the ... button beside the theme you just edited.
   • Select Preview to see your changes in action. Check if more blog posts are now visible on the initial load.

Robert_Kanaan also noted that if you need to display more than, say, 250 articles, you'd likely need to implement traditional pagination links (e.g., "Page 1, 2, 3..."), which would involve additional code edits beyond just the paginate tag.

Beyond Pagination: Enhancing User Experience for Large Blogs

If you have a truly massive blog (hundreds or thousands of posts), simply increasing the display limit or relying solely on infinite scroll might not be the best long-term strategy. Mastroke's suggestion to "create a new page template and display all blogs as title with clickable link" or "as per category wise or you can create a tab system" is excellent advice.

Think about how your visitors browse. Categorizing your posts, adding search filters, or creating curated "best of" lists can make your extensive content library much more digestible and user-friendly, regardless of how many posts load initially.

Ultimately, understanding your theme's default behavior (like Horizon's infinite scroll) is always the first step. Then, consider the performance implications of displaying large amounts of content. If you need to override defaults, a little code can go a long way, but always test on a duplicate theme first! And for really large content libraries, don't forget to think about creative ways to organize and present your valuable blog posts to keep your customers engaged.