What is the point of using archive.php instead of index.php?

index.php and archive.php might be the same but don’t have to be the same. index.php will display your blog post archive and in the absence of archive.php (or other more specific archive files) it will display your date, author, etc. archives as well. But it doesn’t have to.

You can, if you want, display your archived differently that your main blog index. That is the point of those specialized files– they allow you to alter the look of specific pages without having to write complicated conditionals into the index.php file.

The difference between the two files is what you make of it. That difference can be a lot or none.

Reference

http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy

Related Posts:

  1. Is it possible to manipulate the list of page templates?
  2. How to Handle CSS for Multiple Header header.php Files?
  3. Static Front Page problem
  4. Any tag pagination page (except the 1st page) loads index.php template instead of tag.php
  5. WordPress Theme Development: How to redirect templates the right way?
  6. Override template file i subfolders
  7. Single page site with history.js
  8. How to link to the page displayed by home.php?
  9. which template should I use for single category post?
  10. Different templates for each category level
  11. What’s the difference between home.php and index.php?
  12. Custom single template for a specific category
  13. How to move page templates to custom folder?
  14. Page template in two level deep folder
  15. Different wordpress 404 template for different post type [duplicate]
  16. How does WordPress decide what template to use as frontpage
  17. How can I get wp_head() as a string instead of echoing it?
  18. Why does my short code get executed before other content?
  19. Retrieve the template directory URI via global or get_template_directory_uri() every time?
  20. How can I see what template parts are being called for rendering the viewable page?
  21. Add a preview to a WordPress Control Panel
  22. Add a #hash to the links in my custom menu
  23. LOST in WP Template Hireachy
  24. How to load different CSS in different Header?
  25. Template Hierarchy for get_header()
  26. Returning Variables back into a template
  27. Can not Remove Archives and Meta from Sidebar
  28. How to override BuddyPress 3.0 bp-nouveau theme files?
  29. is_archive() content being shown instead of is_category()
  30. Setting hero/splash section as a blog post
  31. Where is the correct place(s) in twentysixteen’s header.php to add a Google webfont?
  32. How to retrieve an image from a post and display it before excerpt of a post? [duplicate]
  33. How can a Theme Contain no Header File or Footer File?
  34. New template, where to place CSS?
  35. Understanding the WordPress template hierarchy
  36. get_query_var() and permalinks
  37. Toggle Sidebar Display
  38. Add theme templates for child categories into the template hierarchy
  39. Move theme templates to subfolder without losing page associations
  40. Where can I access my custom page template?
  41. Theme development question regarding layouts
  42. Why are theme templates organized as multiple point of entry PHP files instead of reusing your theme’s index.php?
  43. Disable front-page.php template
  44. How do I create a custom partial / template?
  45. Simple way to get two language WP site
  46. Load child template based on parent
  47. create-guten-block in wordpress theme?
  48. Inheritance of parent theme plugin files in a child theme
  49. Single Page theme [closed]
  50. Do i need to keep all the default WP templates files in a theme?
  51. How can I detect hierarchal relationships beyond children (grandchild, great-grandchild, etc)?
  52. how to display search term in the template full site editor
  53. Sort wp_query by sum of two meta fields
  54. How to override p2 breathe theme plugin in content template file?
  55. Move default page templates to sub directory
  56. What can I use for small text when converting to WordPress?
  57. WordPress Filtering Custom Post Type by Metadata and Search Heirachy
  58. Where to place template files?
  59. How can I conditionally show different home page templates based on whether or not the user is logged in?
  60. How do I get the trackback count of a post in wordpress without writing an SQL query?
  61. Load sidebar template just once to prevent multiple animations
  62. how to force tag page layout to use same as search layout?
  63. Replace single_template filter with what for default posts?
  64. Need help with adding templates (archives and sitemap) to WordPress child theme
  65. Template for landing pages
  66. Unique design inside a specific category’s url
  67. How to seperate static phrases from template files in custom theme?
  68. Broken theme, template is missing
  69. How to add menù section to my WordPress template?
  70. Post and page content not displaying in search results
  71. Why still output /wp-content/themes/twentynineteen?
  72. How to add custom meta box when you have a custom page template file
  73. Templates dropdown not appearing using _s theme (underscores)
  74. Shortcode call not working in WP Template
  75. Where to put custom page templates in theme?
  76. Create theme for mobile phones and tablets only?
  77. I need to develop a one-page design
  78. add jquery file if a certain page is included
  79. How to create a WP theme that use BootStrap? [closed]
  80. Under theme folder, what’s sequence of action for index.php, page.php, single.php?
  81. Is there a template tag I can use to link to the archive page corresponding to the month that a post was published on?
  82. How to Modify WP_Includes/blocks/latest_posts.php
  83. WordPress hierarchy clarification, does post_type_archive take precedence over taxonomy-term archive?
  84. How to implement pagination in category.php template
  85. Template for front page (latest posts)
  86. Using wp_add_inline_style Inside a Template File
  87. Should I use template files or just use conditional tags in index.php?
  88. bbPress: modifying template for forum index
  89. Display content on Single page
  90. Create a variable with string, array or multiple values
  91. Using require_once for parent-directory not working but is working in sub-directories
  92. How can I fix the even/odd child classes comments so that the comments are unaffected by the top-level even/odd?
  93. Problem with multiple menus in theme
  94. Enable WP to accept standard jQuery code embeding between the tags [duplicate]
  95. 404 on child page template
  96. What is the advantage of using home.php over index.php for the front page
  97. Best practice to create required pages
  98. How customizable is a self-hosted WordPress blog compared to a Blogger blog?
  99. Meaning of “if ( is_home() && ! is_front_page() )” snippet?
  100. Theme template file for a specific custom taxonomy
techhipbettruvabetnorabahisbahis forumutaraftarium24edueduseduedusedueduedusedusedusedus