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How to Change or Remove the Category Base from WordPress

When using pretty permalinks, WordPress adds /category/ to the category URLs, e.g. http://www.example.com/category/sports. This /category/ part is called category base. In this article, I will show you how to change or remove category base from WordPress.

How to Change Category Base in WordPress

Your category and tag base can be modified at the bottom of your permalink settings page, which is located at Settings » Permalinks.

All you have to do is enter the word you want to use as your category base. For example, topics would change your sports category URL to http://www.example.com/topics/sports/.

Change Category and Tag base in WordPress

How to Remove the Category Base From WordPress

Many WordPress users prefer to completely remove the category base from their WordPress URLs. Some users think that it has SEO benefits. I don’t think that removing category base has any significant SEO benefits, and seems like Yoast of WordPress SEO plugin agrees with this. Previously, WordPress SEO had an option to disable category base. However, Yoast has removed this option from the plugin for new installs. Old users who had this option enabled, now see a notice that this option will be discontinued.

On the other hand, there are some aesthetic advantages of removing the category or tag base from URLs in WordPress. This makes URLs shorter and easier to remember.

To remove category base from WordPress, you need to install and activate the FV Top Level Categories plugin. Once activated, it will strip category base from your category URLs.

That’s all, I hope this article helped you change and remove category base from WordPress.

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Comments   Leave a Reply

  1. That plugin doesn’t support with child categories said. What about other?
    wordpress.org/plugins/remove-category-base-littlebizzy

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