How To Remove Uncategorized From Wordpress Menu

How to Remove the Uncategorized Category from WordPress

by | Jul 24, 2022 | Tips & Tricks, Tips of the Week, Tutorials, WordPress |

By default, WordPress includes a default category for its posts. This default category, Uncategorized, is used as a fallback category, created to help the webmaster order their content. Even so, 'Uncategorized' is a bit of an centre-sore and is all-time replaced by something more than relevant to the make and website. While the Uncategorized category cannot exist removed, information technology can be manipulated.

In the following post, nosotros discuss the Uncategorized category and testify you a few means that you can work with the default category for your website.

Renaming the existing Uncategorized default category (good for a new site)
Creating a new default category (expert for an existing, live site)

What is the Uncategorized Category

Whenever a new WordPress installation is ready, the WordPress cadre files include, by default, a few features. I such feature for the Posts post type is a category by the name of Uncategorized.

Categories like Tags fall into the grouping of Taxonomies, words or terms used to structure or group concepts. In the example of a WordPress weblog or website, taxonomies are used to better classify the posts published on the site.

While Tags does non come with a default taxonomy, the Category taxonomy does: Uncategorized.

By default, whenever a new blog post is published, it'll automatically get assigned equally Uncategorized. While this can be a pain for some, information technology'due south actually got a related purpose and practiced intention, and exists as a fallback for when content publishers forget to classify their articles.

Why yous should avoid using the Uncategorized taxonomy

In today's day and age, content marketing is a vital element to include in the marketing mix, with blogging or content articles being a key player in the game. Content creation and publishing, such as manufactures on a blog, for instance, is essentially the process of creating and sharing knowledge, insight and expertise with an audience that is eager to learn and interested in the same or similar topics.

Seeing 'Uncategorized' scattered through some or all blog posts tin take a few repercussions:

It could exist confusing for your reader. They may be uncertain every bit to which forms of content your website releases,
Information technology indicates a badly structured site. With no logical society to your content the overall user experience of your site may lose some points in the eyes of your site visitors,
It may make your brand expect careless or negligent,
It makes searching for similar or related content difficult for your reader.

For taxonomies, it is quite easy to delete a category or tag once they are set up, however, this can't be done with the default category set up by WordPress. In fact, the default category cannot exist removed it all. Instead, a few workarounds be to solve this.

How to Remove the Uncategorized Category from WordPress

If you're looking to remove the Uncategorized category and use something that is on-make, relevant to your content and helpful for your readers, follow the tutorials below.

There are a few options to replace the Uncategorized category. Yous could:

Either rename the default category to a more relevant and appropriate term, or you could
Create a new default category (practiced for an existing, live site)

If you have already started creating and publishing content and would like to rename the default category of Uncategorized to something new, you lot might desire to consider setting upwards redirects every bit to not lose traction in your URLs. All of this will exist explained a petty later on in this post.

Choice 1: Rename the Uncategorized category

Although you lot cannot delete the default category of Uncategorized you tin rename information technology. If yous have but created your website and accept not started publishing post content, this is a great solution to implement before y'all deploy your site.

To rename the category, visit the WordPress dashboard and navigate to Posts > Categories. Here you volition see the Uncategorized category. Hover over the category name and you volition run across a few menu options pop-upwards. Click Edit.

This will bring you to a new screen.

Hither you can enter the new proper noun of a category that is relevant for your blog or website. If you would however similar to create a fallback category of sorts, I suggest renaming this to something like News for case.

Exist certain to rename the slug equally well to ensure that your URLs generate correctly. When consummate, click Update.

Every bit mentioned to a higher place, this is a great solution if your website is withal in development. If your website is live, and you have renamed the Uncategorized category, we suggest setting up redirect/s to preserve the URLs that may accept been changed to avoid returning 404 errors.

In that location are 2 options for this:

Y'all could apply a plugin such as Unproblematic 301 Redirects. If you demand assistance in installing a plugin, read this guide.
Alternately, if yous don't want to use a plugin, you can prepare 301 redirects manually. This requires adding lawmaking to the .htaccess file in your server. We outline this procedure in item in this web log post. Remember to make a backup of your site before editing source code files!

Option ii: Create a new default category

Another option for solving the Uncategorized category is to create a new default category. To practice and then, navigate to Posts > Categories and enter the new name for the default category in the left-paw side cavalcade.

Enter the relevant name for your default category, scroll down and click Add New Category. One time added, you'll see the new category listed on the correct-paw side of the category display.

Next, navigate to Settings > Writing. Here, under Writing Settings, navigate to Default Mail service Category and select the default category from the drop-down list.

When consummate, click Save, and now your new default category will be saved. In the future, if you publish a post and forget to select its category, the default category will be assigned.

Modifying Category Settings in Divi

If yous'd like to explore more Category settings for your Divi website, navigate to the Divi Themes Option console, then click on Navigation > Categories. Here you can find various display and organization settings for your categories. You can also deselect the Uncategorized category so that it will not display in your navigation menu.

Now, since you've fix a new default category, Uncategorized can be deleted. Brand sure that you reassign the new category to the posts that were previously assigned Uncategorized.

We hope that you've enjoyed this mail and that it has helped your WordPress publishing! Let us know if you have any questions in the comments department!