Sticky posts allow you to add featured posts in WordPress and display them differently on your site’s homepage. Recently one of our users asked us how they can add sticky posts in category pages. By adding sticky posts on category pages you can display featured posts from that particular category. In this article, you will get to learn how to add sticky posts for categories in WordPress.
First thing you need to do is install and activate Category Sticky Post. There are no special settings page for the plugin. Simply create a new post or edit an existing one, and you will be able to see a new ‘Category Sticky’ meta box in the post edit area.
Next, simply choose the category where you want this post to be displayed as a sticky post and save your changes.
If you want to set another sticky post in that category, then you will have to uncheck category from the earlier sticky post. It is not required for a post to be filed in the same category. For example a post filed in Announcements category, can be made sticky in the News category.
Each category can only have one sticky post at a given time. Also each post can only be sticky for one category.
By default the plugin adds a black border on top and bottom of the category sticky post to distinguish it from other posts. You can disable it by checking the Hide Sticky Post Border checkbox. When this box is not checked the plugin adds a category-sticky class to the category sticky post. You can override this in your child theme’s stylesheet.
.category-sticky {
border:none;
background-color:#f5f5f5;
}
We hope this article helped you add sticky posts to your WordPress categories. For questions and feedback you can leave us a comment or join us on Twitter.
Dave says
Thanks for posting. Plug-in still works in 2022!
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome and glad to hear it is still working
Admin
Szilard says
Thank You!
WordPress hides this plugin in the search since they say not tested with the recent wp versions. But based on your article I could find it again. And it just works.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our guide could be helpful
Admin
lisa says
Please could someone give me a simple explanation of the difference between stickys and featured posts. Many tutorial sites seem to use the words as if they were interchangeable but it seems they are not – they obviously have different functions, otherwise why give them different names. Thanks
WPBeginner Support says
Sticky posts are a WordPress default option to have a post appear before your other content while featured posts are an option in some themes that depending on the theme it can either be interchangeable or for a specific section of the theme.
Admin
Vera says
Thanks.
How can I make the Category Sticky Post full length and the rest of the Category Posts excerpt (Twenty-Thirteen theme)?
Thank you.
Blair Scheeers says
Any idea why my categories wouldn’t show up in the sticky post dropdown box?
Karunakar says
With “Category Sticky Post” Plugin, we are able to stick only a single post in a category.
How to stick multiple posts in a single category?
Thank you in advance.
Halong Bay says
How can I have more than one sticky posts in the same category please?
Clodagh Phelan says
Please could someone give me a simple explanation of the difference between stickys and featured posts. Many tutorial sites seem to use the words as if they were interchangeable but it seems they are not – they obviously have different functions, otherwise why give them different names. Thanks
WPBeginner Support says
Clodagh, Sticky posts are sometimes referred as featured posts. Some WordPress themes or tutorials would want you to create a category called Featured Posts on your site and use posts in that category to be highlighted as featured posts.
Admin
Tim says
Found this plugin that solves my problem. Works. Beautiful! http://wordpress.org/plugins/category-sticky-posts/
Tim says
The big question is: Why can’t a sticky post just be sticky everywhere?
Eg what if a post is in multiple categories? (eg an art exhibition with live music and wine tasting should go in all three categories, and be sticky in all three if it’s happening this week).
I’m guessing the reason is you can’t have multiple sticky posts per category. But… why? If there are multiple sticky posts, just put _them_ in date order, above the other posts.
Feels like this would simplify things a bit.
Wordpress Awards says
well done
Thanks
rakesh kumar says
Very useful information you have shared with us. I was just trying to figure it out how to do this for each category and suddenly found your article, Thanks a lot.
Olivia says
What is a sticky post? What does it look like when I see it? Why do i need it?
WPBeginner Support says
Olivia, see the screenshot in the article. A Sticky post is much like a featured post, it is usually displayed on top of your regular post no matter when it was published.
Admin
Ali says
Thank you for this article!
I have been thinking about categories and archives lately because I’m starting to get more posts on my site.
The sticky posts looks like a great way to showcase one post.
How do I set up my site so that if someone clicks on a category (or an archive date) they see only a short stub of ALL posts under that category or date?
Maybe even a list of all post titles if it’s not possible to have a title and intro?
Currently when I click on a category or archive date all of the posts show, but they show as full posts – so it’s a LONG page and hard to find the one post you want to read.
Thank you!
Ali Jayne
http://alijayne.com
WPBeginner Support says
Ali you should replace
the_content()tag withthe_excerpt()in your archive templates like archive.php, category.php, tag.php, etc. For more on this please check out Full Post vs Summary (Excerpt) in your WordPress Archive Pages.Admin