Readers arrive to read our most recent posts. In the case of my blog that means they don't have to slog through over 800 posts to locate the most recent one.

See here for the option of creating a book-like structure > http://en.support.wordpress.com/write-a-book/ Perhaps that will work for you.

You could use a sticky post as an index page > http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-visibility/#sticky-posts

You can change your site's URL here:

Changing a Blog Address

As mentioned on that page, if you do change your blog address, permalinks to your old address, including search engine results, will be broken unless you purchase a Site Redirect upgrade.

Please let me know if you need any help with this.

Also: compare SEO of blogs with infinite scroll and those without. Anecdotal evidence suggests shorter pages Google higher.

And disable Infinite Scroll, search engines don't like it.

re: blog fodder
Please email me links to your authoritative sources that support that statement.

http://mackijones.wordpress.com/ will not google well because google has no reason to index it, as it has no content.

http://doyouwanttobehealed.wordpress.com/ exists and is decently constructed, but if you want it to rank higher, you need to follow basic SEO tips. Having a URL that is the same as the blog name would help, for instance. You are also not using ANY tags or categories, which is a huge mistake. Use appropriate tags and categories up to about a dozen maximum on any one post. And disable Infinite Scroll, search engines don't like it.

We have no control over what Google chooses to post. All search engine issues are between the blogger and search engines.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/search-engines/

Th other free hosted WordPress.com blog linked to in the OP is at http://doyouwanttobehealed.wordpress.com/
Site title> A Matter of the Heart:
Tagline > Devotions by Macki Jone

#infinite-handle span:before,
#infinite-handle span {
	background: #fff;
	border: none;
	color: #333;
}

Are you talking about the outdated pages in your top navigation menu?

If so, then make a custom menu titled something like "old issues" and put those pages as child pages of that. They will still be visible but won't clutter up your top navigation.

In fact, IMO, if I were you, I'd make a custom menu with current issues for the top navigation. Then make another custom menu for "old issues" to be shown in your sidebar as a menu widget.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
and this: http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/custom-menus/
and finally:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/custom-menu-widget/

A key thing to understand about wp.com is that pages and posts are different. Read timethief's link before you proceed!
http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page/

Staff have been introducing “infinite scroll" to themes — a site wide change that will be applied to all themes that are suitable for the implementation. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/to-infinity?replies=137
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/to-infinity-and-beyond/

Disabling the infinite scroll feature to get rid of the pop-up in the footer results in a "Load More Posts" tab, and you can't disable that "Load More Posts" tab from appearing and have "previous post" and "next post" links, without the Custom Design upgrade. http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/

I'm going to consider this thread closed for now because most of the issues you have pointed out here are duplicates from past threads, and I just wanted to clear up any misconceptions (like the bandwidth) and let you know that we're paying attention to constructive feedback.

On top of that, if you have multiple posts with multiple videos, each time a video is played, Adobe plug ins eat more and more of your memory up without resetting because you've gone to a new page.

This is really an argument against Adobe plug ins, but I understand the pain point in context.

If those links are clicked, you or your readers lose your/their place in the infinite scroll and are forced to start all over again.

This is really good feedback, and we're actively working on solving this exact thing.

It can clog up a bandwidth

This is not true. Infinite scroll is designed specifically to be faster. If you compared paged views with Infinite Scroll views, the Infinite Scroll version uses less bandwidth because by making fewer calls to the server and it only has to load in post data whereas the paged view has to redraw the entire page.

I personally find infinite scrolling irksome and to a lesser extent the 'load more posts' option. I have noticed that I can change the number of posts that are to be displayed so I can fiddle with that on my blog.

Thanks for your help! Good luck with the new features :-)

To answer your question, there is not a way for you to make a cut of point after 3-4 rows, but that's actually something similar to solutions we've discussed internally for the next iteration of the infinite scrolling feature. We're listening to all of the feedback and working out what the best solutions should be. Our developers are working on it now, so we should hopefully have an update within the next few months. Based on everything I've heard, it sounds like interesting challenge. Your feedback is really relevant to our discussion. Thank you for posting it!

I see that you're currently using the "Load more posts" option, which I think is a good interim solution for now.

We're looking to add infinite scroll to all themes. You can see more details about infinite scroll in this blog post:

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/to-infinity-and-beyond/

I agree with the folk here on the demerits of infinite scrolling or load more posts, though perhaps not as passionately! However, as the blog grows in content I can see it being a burden. It can clog up a bandwidth and mine here isn't great, so it takes a while for the next set of images to load for me, and then going back to the homepage means I need to start again.

Site is http://thepatternedplate.wordpress.com/

Could I possible page them after every few rows of images? My homepage is image heavy since I use Imbalance 2 so I feel there needs to be a cut off point, say after 3-4 rows.

Thanks in advance..

Site is http://thepatternedplate.wordpress.com/

Could I possible page them after every few rows of images? My homepage is definitely image dependant and heavy since I use Imbalance 2 so I feel there needs to be a cut off point, say after 3-4 rows.

Also, I want to put my recipe page into two columns and I found the code for that before but can't for the life of me find it again! Could you help?

Thanks in advance..