Posts in Jekyll with same date

As you should know, a post on Jekyll is created by making a new .md file in the _posts folder.

Then you name it as YEAR-MONTH-DAY-title.MARKUP

Where YEAR is a four-digit number, MONTH and DAY are both two-digit numbers, and MARKUP is the file extension representing the format used in the file, md for Markdown. For example, the following are examples of valid post filenames:

2024-08-01-article-1.md
2024-08-01-article-2.md

By default, Jekyll uses the date you use in the filename, so 2024-08-01-article-2.md is read by Jekyll, and then when it displays the posts, it uses that date.

The Problem with Same-Date Posts

However, your post should also have a date field in the YAML front matter. You will find that when you create a new blank Jekyll site, it includes that field. This is a best practice, especially for people who may post more than once a day and care about how the posts get displayed chronologically.

Basic Date Format

Using the date field, you can use this format:

date: 2024-08-01

But it’s important to include the timezone for consistency:

Jekyll Date Front Matter

Extended Date Format with Time

In our case, that does not help a lot because you want more granularity, so you can extend the date format like this, which includes HH:MM:SS +TTTT:

date: 2024-08-01 02:05:54 +0200

Practical Example

Here is what you should minimally do so you get the sorting right, assuming article 1 was written first and article 2 was written second:

2024-08-01-article-1.md:

---
layout: single
title: article-1
date: 2024-08-01 02:01:00 +0200
excerpt:
seo_title:
seo_description:
categories:
tags:
---
The content goes here...

2024-08-01-article-2.md:

---
layout: single
title: article-2
date: 2024-08-01 02:02:00 +0200
excerpt:
seo_title:
seo_description:
categories:
tags:
---
The content goes here...

Key Points to Remember

Filename dates are not enough - Jekyll needs YAML front matter dates for proper sorting
Include timezone information - Use the +TTTT format for consistency
Use precise timestamps - Include hours, minutes, and seconds when posting multiple times per day
Maintain chronological order - Earlier posts should have earlier timestamps
Be consistent - Use the same timezone format across all posts

This approach ensures that your Jekyll site displays posts in the correct chronological order, even when multiple posts share the same publication date.