WPBeginner

Beginner's Guide for WordPress

  • Blog
    • Beginners Guide
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Showcase
    • Themes
    • Tutorials
    • WordPress Plugins
  • Start Here
    • How to Start a Blog
    • Create a Website
    • Start an Online Store
    • Best Website Builder
    • Email Marketing
    • WordPress Hosting
    • Business Name Ideas
  • Deals
    • Bluehost Coupon
    • SiteGround Coupon
    • WP Engine Coupon
    • HostGator Coupon
    • Domain.com Coupon
    • Constant Contact
    • View All Deals »
  • Glossary
  • Videos
  • Products
X
☰
Beginner's Guide for WordPress / Start your WordPress Blog in minutes
Choosing the Best
WordPress Hosting
How to Easily
Install WordPress
Recommended
WordPress Plugins
View all Guides

WPBeginner» Blog» Tutorials» How to Convert WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

How to Convert WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

Last updated on May 10th, 2018 by Editorial Staff
106 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Free WordPress Video Tutorials on YouTube by WPBeginner
How to Convert WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

Do you want to convert your WordPress categories into custom taxonomies? Categories are one of the two default taxonomies that help you sort your content. However, WordPress also allows you to create and use custom taxonomies. In this article, we will show you how to easily convert WordPress categories into custom taxonomies.

How to Convert WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

Why and When Do You Need to Convert Categories to Custom Taxonomies

Categories and tags are the two default taxonomies in WordPress. Taxonomies are used to sort and organize content into different topics.

Apart from the default taxonomies, WordPress also allows you to create custom taxonomies which you can use with existing post types or with custom post types. For more on this topic, see our article on when do you need a custom post type or taxonomy in WordPress.

As your website grow, you might find a need to convert your categories into a custom taxonomy. For example, let’s say that you have a category called topics with a lot of sub-categories. It would be time-consuming to edit each post and file it under your new custom taxonomy.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could bulk convert some or all of your categories to the new custom taxonomy?

Let’s take a look at how you can easily convert categories to custom taxonomies without manually editing each post.

Converting WordPress Categories to Custom Taxonomies

First thing you need to do is install and activate Taxonomy Switcher plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Tools » Taxonomy Switcher page in your WordPress admin area to convert categories to custom taxonomies.

Taxonomy Switcher

On this page, you can select the taxonomies you want to convert. For this tutorial, we will select ‘Categories’ as the taxonomy we want to switch from, and ‘Topics’ as the custom taxonomy we want to switch to.

Select taxonomies

If you want to convert all categories to a custom taxonomy, then you can go ahead and click on the ‘Switch Taxonomies’ button.

The plugin will convert all categories to your selected custom taxonomy. You will see a success message like this:

Successfully switched taxonomies

If you just want to convert specific categories, then you will need to add the IDs of those categories next to ‘Comma separated list of term ids to switch’ field. See our article on how to find category IDs in WordPress for more details.

Skip categories

Additionally, if you want to skip child categories of a specific category, then you can add the IDs of the parent category next to ‘Limit taxonomy switch for child terms of a specific parent’ option.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Switch Taxonomy’ button to save your changes.

Setting Up Redirects from Category to Custom Taxonomy

After you switch categories to a custom taxonomy, the category archive page will now show a 404 error page. This is nothing to be worried about if your website is not live yet.

However if your website is live, then search engines may have already crawled your category pages and indexed them. This means that those pages can appear in search results and users coming from search engines will see a 404 error page.

To fix this, you need to redirect users to the new taxonomy page for each category.

Luckily, there is an easy fix for that.

First, you will need to install and activate the Redirection plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Tools » Redirection page. In the Source URL field, you need to enter /category/.* and in the Target URL field you need to enter your custom taxonomy slug, e.g. /topic/$1

Set up redirects

Next, you need check the box next to ‘Regex’ option, and then click on ‘Add Redirect’ button.

This redirect will now send all category archive traffic to your custom taxonomy. Only use this, if you don’t want to use categories at all.

If you want to redirect individual categories to a custom taxonomy page, then see our beginner’s guide on setting up redirects in WordPress with detailed step by step instructions.

We hope this article helped you learn how to convert WordPress categories to custom taxonomies. You may also want to see our guide on how to style individual categories differently in WordPress to style your custom taxonomy templates.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

106 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Popular on WPBeginner Right Now!
  • Revealed: Why Building an Email List is so Important Today (6 Reasons)

    Revealed: Why Building an Email List is so Important Today (6 Reasons)

  • Checklist

    Checklist: 15 Things You MUST DO Before Changing WordPress Themes

  • How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

    How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

  • Google Analytics in WordPress

    How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress for Beginners

About the Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi. Trusted by over 1.3 million readers worldwide.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

Comments

  1. Congratulations, you have the opportunity to be the first commenter on this article.
    Have a question or suggestion? Please leave a comment to start the discussion.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

Over 1,320,000+ Readers

Get fresh content from WPBeginner

Featured WordPress Plugin
OptinMonster
OptinMonster
Convert website visitors into email subscribers. Learn More »
How to Start a Blog How to Start a Blog
I need help with ...
Starting a
Blog
WordPress
Performance
WordPress
Security
WordPress
SEO
WordPress
Errors
Building an
Online Store
Useful WordPress Guides
    • 7 Best WordPress Backup Plugins Compared (Pros and Cons)
    • How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress
    • Why You Need a CDN for your WordPress Blog? [Infographic]
    • 30 Legit Ways to Make Money Online Blogging with WordPress
    • Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com [Infograph]
    • Free Recording: WordPress Workshop for Beginners
    • 24 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Business Websites
    • How to Properly Move Your Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
    • 5 Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress Compared
    • Which is the Best WordPress Popup Plugin? (Comparison)
    • Best WooCommerce Hosting in 2020 (Comparison)
    • How to Fix the Internal Server Error in WordPress
    • How to Install WordPress - Complete WordPress Installation Tutorial
    • Why You Should Start Building an Email List Right Away
    • How to Properly Move WordPress to a New Domain Without Losing SEO
    • How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting for Your Website
    • How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform (Comparison)
    • WordPress Tutorials - 200+ Step by Step WordPress Tutorials
    • 5 Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins Compared
    • 5 Best WordPress Membership Plugins (Compared)
    • 7 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2020)
    • How to Choose the Best Domain Registrar (Compared)
    • The Truth About Shared WordPress Web Hosting
    • When Do You Really Need Managed WordPress Hosting?
    • 5 Best Drag and Drop WordPress Page Builders Compared
    • How to Switch from Blogger to WordPress without Losing Google Rankings
    • How to Properly Switch From Wix to WordPress (Step by Step)
    • How to Properly Move from Weebly to WordPress (Step by Step)
    • Do You Really Need a VPS? Best WordPress VPS Hosting Compared
    • How to Properly Move from Squarespace to WordPress
    • How to Register a Domain Name (+ tip to get it for FREE)
    • HostGator Review - An Honest Look at Speed & Uptime (2020)
    • SiteGround Reviews from 4196 Users & Our Experts (2020)
    • Bluehost Review from Real Users + Performance Stats (2020)
    • How Much Does It Really Cost to Build a WordPress Website?
    • How to Create an Email Newsletter the RIGHT WAY (Step by Step)
    • Free Business Name Generator (A.I Powered)
    • How to Create a Free Business Email Address in 5 Minutes (Step by Step)
    • How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress for Beginners
    • How to Move WordPress to a New Host or Server With No Downtime
    • Why is WordPress Free? What are the Costs? What is the Catch?
    • How to Make a Website in 2020 – Step by Step Guide
Deals & Coupons (view all)
FloThemes
FloThemes Coupon
Get 20% off on FloThemes theme's beautiful WordPress photography themes.
ChurchThemes.com Coupon
Get 20% OFF on ChurchThemes.com premium WordPress themes and plugin.
Featured In
About WPBeginner®

WPBeginner is a free WordPress resource site for Beginners. WPBeginner was founded in July 2009 by Syed Balkhi. The main goal of this site is to provide quality tips, tricks, hacks, and other WordPress resources that allows WordPress beginners to improve their site(s).
Join our team: We are Hiring!

Site Links
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • FTC Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Free Blog Setup
  • Free Business Tools
Our Sites
  • OptinMonster
  • MonsterInsights
  • WPForms
  • SeedProd
  • Nameboy
  • RafflePress
  • Smash Balloon

Copyright © 2009 - 2021 WPBeginner LLC. All Rights Reserved. WPBeginner® is a registered trademark.

Managed by Awesome Motive | WordPress hosting by SiteGround | WordPress CDN by MaxCDN | WordPress Security by Sucuri.