Organizing Content: Categories and Tags

As your website grows, helping visitors find the content they are looking for becomes crucial. PolyCMS uses a powerful Taxonomy System consisting of Categories and Tags to logically group your posts and products.

Understanding the difference between the two is key to a well-structured website.

Categories: The Table of Contents

Categories are meant for broad grouping of your topics. Think of them as the chapters or the "Table of Contents" of your website. They are hierarchical, meaning you can have sub-categories nested under main categories.

Example: A technology blog might have a main category called "Smartphones", with sub-categories for "Apple", "Samsung", and "Google".

Best Practice: Every post should belong to at least one category, but usually no more than two or three.

Managing Categories

Navigate to Content > Categories.

To create a new one, enter a Name. The slug (the URL friendly version) will be generated automatically.

If this is a sub-category, select a Parent Category from the dropdown.

You can also add a description and a category image, which some themes may display at the top of the category archive page.

Tags: The Index

Tags are meant to describe specific details of your posts. Think of them as the "Index" at the back of a book. They are not hierarchical.

Example: For a review post about the iPhone 15 located in the "Apple" category, you might use tags like: ios 17, camera test, battery life, a17 pro chip.

Best Practice: Tags are completely optional. A post can have zero tags, or it can have ten. Use them only when they help connect specific, recurring topics across different categories.

Managing Tags

Navigate to Content > Tags.

Here you can view, edit, or delete existing tags.

Note: The easiest way to create new tags is usually directly from the Post Editor sidebar while you are writing an article. Just type the tag name and press Enter!

Product Categories and Tags

If you are running an e-commerce store with PolyCMS, you will notice that Products have their own separate categorization system.

Product Categories and Product Tags work exactly the same way as Blog Categories and Tags, but they are kept completely separate in the database. This ensures that your blog's "Apple" category (for news) doesn't get mixed up with your store's "Apple" category (for selling iPhones).

Manage your store's taxonomy by navigating to E-Commerce > Categories and E-Commerce > Tags.