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Kevin Korte
28,149 PointsTaxonomy vs Category
Been trying to wrap my head around this one.
I realize that a Category is a type of Taxonomy. But I'm having a hard time figuring out what I would want to define a custom taxonomy over using a category. What benefit is there I'm missing?
One example I've seen is custom taxonomy for a location for a nation wide new site. This would allow all news posts under the custom taxonomy "New York" show up under a New York section. Wouldn't a "New York" category accomplish the same?
Sorry to bug you Zac Gordon but maybe you can help clear this. Or any other wordpress gurus?
Also Zac, in your unpublished remaining Wordpress theme sections, are you planning on covering taxonomies more?
Thank you!
2 Answers
Zac Gordon
Treehouse Guest TeacherGreat questions about custom taxonomies!
I find a great time to use custom taxonomies is when you start having multiple category types nested in one larger category.
For example:
Categories:
-- Locations
--- Downtown
--- Uptown
--- Midtown
-- Services
--- Design
--- Development
--- Marketing
This would make much more sense to split into two custom taxonomies. For me, it's that simple :)
We will not be going into more depth on this in the current video series since their use case is not that common. However, in the future if/when we do an advanced theme tutorial series, we would get into that.
For example, when I build a portfolio site in WordPress often I will want to have a set of categories for the blog section and another taxonomy for the portfolio pieces.
Hope that helps!
Matthew Dilello
6,203 PointsNot sure how often other people use custom taxonomies, but I have rarely had a need for them. I have worked with them on eCommerce type sites where a few custom taxonomies are used for things such as Price and Collection for "shop by" options.
You can read more on WordPress codex for Taxonomies if you have not already done so.