Readers often ask us what is better for SEO: categories or tags? You may not be sure what WordPress categories and tags are and how they differ. Knowing this can help you use them correctly. In this article, we will explain the differences between the categories and tags used to organize content and how they affect SEO rankings.
this is what we will introduce in this tutorial. You can use the link below to jump to the section you are interested in. What is the difference between
- categories and tags? How does
- add categories and tags to WordPress?
- how many WordPress categories should you have?
- uses category
- in your post URL. Can I assign a post to multiple categories?
- is there a limit on how many tags a post can have?
- categories and tags: what’s better for SEO?
- , can you control how categories and tags are displayed in search results? What is the difference between
hidden
categories and tags?
categories and tags are WordPress taxonomy. They are used to group your posts together in different ways. The
category is designed to broadly group your posts. Think of these as general themes or directories for your WordPress site. Categories are hierarchical, which means that you can create subcategories.
, on the other hand, tags are designed to describe the details of your post. Think of these as the index words of your website. They allow you to micro-classify content. The label is not layered.
for example, this blog post about WPBeginner belongs to our “beginner’s Guide” category. You can go to the blog »beginner’s Guide in our navigation menu to view all posts in this category. The
article also has the following tags: categories, categories and tags, custom taxonomy, search engine optimization, search engine optimization best practices, content sorting and tags.
you won’t see these tags anywhere in the article. However, they do help users find this article in the relevant search of our blog. One of the biggest differences between
tags and categories is that all WordPress posts must be grouped under one category, but they don’t have to be tagged.
if you don’t have a category for your post, WordPress will automatically assign it to the default category. This is called “unclassified”, but it is often helpful to rename the “unclassified” category to something like “other” or “miscellaneous”.
Note: by default, only blog posts have categories and tags in WordPress. However, you can use plug-ins to add categories and tags to WordPress pages. How does
add categories and tags to WordPress? When
creates or edits posts, you can add categories and tags to WordPress. You will find them on the right side of the document setting.
you can also go to the post »category and post »tag to add new categories and tags.
for more information about the process of adding categories and tags, please see our explanation of what categories are. What is a label? Ask for help and guidance.
how many WordPress categories should you have?
does not have a specific number of categories that you should have. In most cases, you need a location between 5 and 10 to correctly classify your posts and make your site easy to navigate. The
category is designed to contain a large set of posts. You can use subcategories and tags to divide your posts into smaller groups.
if you are just starting a blog, don’t worry about trying to come up with a perfect list of categories. Just select 3-5 large categories and add more over time.
Do I have to use subcategories?
You don’t have to use subcategories for
, nor do many large blogs (including WPBeginner). However, if you have a large category in which many posts can be divided into smaller sections, then subcategories can be helpful.
for example, you may have a “recipes” category that contains more and more gluten-free recipes.
you can put these posts into their own subcategories so that readers can easily find them. You created a new subcategory called gluten-free for recipes and moved these posts to that category.
uses category
in your post URL some sites use category names in persistent links (post URL), which you can set under set »permanent links.
if this is the case on your website, your post will initially have a URL like this: … After / recipes/ gluten-free-pancakes/
moves the post to a subcategory, it will have a new URL:… / recipes/gluten-free/ gluten-free-pancakes/
typically, WordPress attempts to redirect the old URL to the new URL. It’s definitely worth checking to see if your link is still valid. If necessary, you can create a 301 redirection from the old URL to the new URL. Another option for
is to keep the post in the parent category and assign it to the subcategory, but this may have drawbacks.
although WPBeginner sites have categories in URL, we always recommend that users use a shorter URL structure that contains only the “post name”. This will give you maximum flexibility to reorganize content without having to worry about setting redirects.
All our new websites use the modern “post name” URL structure. WPBeginner is more than 10 years old, so it has a legacy URL structure, and it is not recommended to change the URL structure for SEO, which is why we insist on using it.
can I assign a post to multiple categories?
WordPress allows you to divide an article into multiple categories. This may be several parent categories, or a parent category plus one or more subcategories. Having multiple categories in
is not good for your SEO. If it is most meaningful to your readers, you should only assign posts to multiple categories.
putting your posts in multiple categories may cause some SEO problems due to duplicate content.
if you do use multiple categories, try to avoid placing an article in two or more major (parent) categories. Every post should belong to a major category.
is there a limit on how many tags a post can have?
WordPress itself has no limit on the number of tags per article. You may assign 1000 or more tags to a post!
, however, we absolutely do not recommend this. The purpose of the
tag is to help link related posts together. Think of them as indexed parts of the book. Each tag is like a keyword in an index. The
tag helps users search your site. Some plug-ins that display related posts use tags to help them find out which posts are relevant.
we recommend that you usually stick to a maximum of 10 tags per post.
categories and tags: what’s better for SEO? Is there any WordPress SEO advantage for
to use categories instead of tags, and vice versa?
‘s simplest answer is no.
categories and tags have different uses. You must use categories, but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to use tags. However, we recommend the appropriate use of both to help readers navigate your site.
ultimately, you should design your site with users in mind. All search engines want to show users what is most useful to them.
this means that organizing your content for best usability will also help you get better SEO rankings.
, can you control how categories and tags are displayed in search results?
you can use the best WordPress SEO plug-in All in One SEO (AIOSEO) on the market to customize the way categories and tags are displayed on the search engine results page.
first install and activate the free plug-in for All in One SEO Premium or AIOSEO. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install the WordPress plug-in. After
is activated, you can navigate to All in One SEO »Search Appearance and click the “Taxomonies” tab to configure the search appearance for categories and tags.
default settings apply to most Web sites, but you can customize them in a number of ways.
for example, some users like to prevent search engines from indexing their archived lists of categories and tags. This helps prevent duplicate content problems and encourages search engines to give priority to your actual posts and pages.
in the Category section, simply switch the Show in search option to No.
next, you should scroll down to the “labels” section and do the same.
make sure that you click the Save changes button at the top or bottom of the page to store your settings. Search engines will no longer index your category and tag archive pages.
We hope this article will help you understand categories and tags and SEO best practices for sorting content. You may also like our article on how to track WordPress category and tag analysis, as well as our comparison of SEO’s best keyword research tools.
