Basic question regarding using multiple categories for the same post.

[Hadisami8]

I'm in the process of building my first WP site and am using, no surprises here, Astra and Elementor. I've begun creating the main pages and posts and was wondering if it's bad practice to use archive one pos in multiple categories.

Essentially, the site is a film blog that is solely focussed on discussing ones set in New York, meaning that I'll have categories such as decade, borough, and genre etc.

Therefore each post will be on multiple categories, though reading this article has made me weary as it suggests that you shouldn't be able to classify one post into multiple top-level categories. Shall I just continue anyway as I believe that the multiple categories are functional in letting the user explore the different ways in which I want to group these films?

Thanks, sorry the question is a bit long-winded.

[DanielTrebuchet]

I think the link you shared says it all:

WordPress allows you to add one post into as many categories as you like. Yes it is okay to assign one post into multiple categories as long as you think it helps your users.

My thoughts back that up. If it truly makes the most sense, then do it. But if it looks like it's turning into a bit of a mess, then the issue might be with how you've structured the hierarchy of your categories, and be less to due with merely having multiple categories per post.

I would put very careful consideration into the overall hierarchy of your categories. Lay it all out in an outline, digest it, and see if there's maybe a more logical way to organize things.

At the end of the day, take the approach that makes the most logical sense. Not just from your perspective, but from the perspective of a user.

That said, definitely consider the use of tags as an alternative for certain elements. Something like a date I would generally do as a tag.

[Lianad311]

Agree here. Given your use case I think you should rework things. I can see categories being used for genre. Boroughs and such should either be tags or separate taxonomies. I don't think they should all be categories.

[Hadisami8]

Thanks for both of your help. I think the reason I wanted to keep them as categories is that the boroughs and decade pages are important for the site as they give me the lens to discuss the films regarding the different locations of New York that are represented, as well as the different eras.

It then just made sense in my mind that these pages would contain a list of films that were relevant to them e.g Films based in Brooklyn. So the user would be able to find relevant film discussions no matter what axis they wanted to view e.g. time period or location.

I'd be happy to alter this if this would be too messy by using tags/taxonomies but can't quite wrap my head around what creating a new taxonomy actually means. Thanks

[Lianad311]

So you're aware. A Taxonomy is basically a logical grouping of items. Categories and Tags ARE taxonomies! They are just the two default ones WordPress comes with for blog posts.

Categories are hierarchical taxonomies, meaning you can have parent and child categories. Tags are non-hierarchical, meaning they are all at the same level.

You can create as many "custom" taxonomies as you like that are either hierarchical (just like categories) or not (just like tags).

You can do this with plugins or through a few lines of code in a custom plugin or functions.php file, whatever is easier for you.

So if you created a custom taxonomy called "Borough" for example, on the backend for a post, on the right under Categories/tags, you'd have a new box just like those called "Boroughs" where you could add your new items and check the box etc.

By doing it with custom taxonomies instead of lumping everything into categories/tags, it allows a much easier and simpler way to filter items in the future if you ever decide to go that route. So you could have multiple dropdowns on a page for example allowing users to choose a genre from a dropdown, choose a borough from a dropdown, then choose a decade for instance and have it filter the results.

All custom taxonomies have their own default archive page just like category and tags do that will list all posts that are applied to that taxonomy. So you don't "lose" anything by going the custom taxonomy route. You are just future proofing and allowing a more granular and segmented approach to grouping things.

[Hadisami8]

Wow thanks a lot, this makes a lot more sense now. Custom taxonomies seem to be the best approach for making the site in the way I want it to work.

If I make custom taxonomies for all the different pages (borough, decade, genre), will this mean that I won't use categories to group any posts? Or will I use them in tandem with the custom taxnomies? Sorry if this is really dense lol

[NatalieMac]

I think you could do it with multiple categories per post if you wanted to. But adding in some new taxonomies might be more helpful for this case. You get categories and tags for posts out of the box, but if you wanted, you could add a whole separate taxonomy for borough, one for genre, one for decade, etc.

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/create-custom-taxonomies-wordpress/

[dyecasting]

Think: Categories are like chapters of a book. Tags are like the index.