WordPress is the most popular CMS across the globe with amazing features to build engaging websites. But sometimes situation arises when it becomes necessary to rename some categories on the WordPress site. As a site expands in functionality, it becomes necessary to change the name of existing categories or simply merge them with other categories. You can perform this by yourself but it is recommended to hire WordPress developer India for streamlined and optimized work.
In this blog post, we will discuss how to properly rename categories in WordPress without making any sort of impact on the SEO strategies.
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Why it is important to Rename Categories in WordPress?
If you’ve developed a WordPress website, then building a good organizational structure will make it simpler for the visitors to find content and can help a site rank higher in search engine results. That’s why WordPress offers categories and tags. It is easy to understand how to manage your content effectively in our guide on best practices for categories and tags. Once more content is added, it becomes necessary to improve the way posts are organized, and you may plan to rename some of the categories.
How to Rename Categories in WordPress?
You will access the WordPress category management by opening Posts » Categories. On this page, it is easy to manage WordPress categories, edit current categories, and remove unwanted categories.
There are two methods to rename categories.
1.First Method
The first one is to click the ‘Quick Edit’ link under the category you like to rename.
The Quick Edit Metabox will come in screen. Here name of the category can be quickly changed. You can even change the category’s slug, which defines URL of the category page.
Make sure you click the Update Category button one done.
2.Second Method
The second technique to rename a category supports adding a description of the category. To perform this, just click the ‘Edit’ link within the category you like to rename.
Click the Edit Link under the Category You like to rename. This will take you to the category edit page. Here you can customize the category name, slug and description. The category edit page also supports selecting a parent category.
Both these methods need proper skills to execute and WordPress development agency is your perfect partner to complete the job smoothly.
Changing the Category Prefix
WordPress supports changing the /category/ prefix in category URLs. This is known as category base. To change it, open Settings » Permalinks and scroll down to ‘Optional’. There you will access a form to change category base as well as tag base.
The default category base is ‘category’. Here, user can change it to anything as per need.
Merging and Bulk Editing Categories
Once the website scales, you may decide to ease the organizational structure and merge different categories into one.
This is beneficial if you see that you have a few categories that are quite similar. By combining them into a single category, it is easy to make your WordPress site less complicated and simple to navigate.
Redirecting Users to the New Category URL
Once the category’s slug is changed, then the URL to the category page is also changed and the old URL will no longer run. Fortunately, if you added category to the WordPress menu, then WordPress will simply update the menu to reflect changes.
But when users or search engines access the old category URL, it will no longer run. Instead, they come across a 404 Page Not Found error message. These 404 errors turn out to be a bad user experience which lead to huge drop in search engine rankings and reduce sales.
To avoid this, it is easy to set up a redirection from the old URL to the new one. It’s extremely crucial that 301 redirect is set up using AIOSEO else changing the category URLs could hamper your website search rankings.
Wrapping Up:
We hope this blog post helped you learn how to properly rename categories in WordPress. You can also reach out to WordPress technical support services in case you face difficulty to rename categories. They will definitely help you with the service in the most professional way. One such brand with good reputation and technical skills is WordPressIndia. They have team of experienced developers to bring your idea into reality.
