Questions:
Do you use categories on your blog?
If so, how many?
A while back, I stopped using categories on my blog posts. There were simply way too many and I really didn’t see much use in them in a personal blog. They took up a fair amount of time, time that I could use for something else.
Since then, all blog posts have been assigned a default of “general” category.
I may go back to using categories, but if I do, I need to be more selective. WordPress has the capability to assign a hierarchy. For instance, I could assign “civil war” and “Eyes of the Great Depression” under “American History” – certainly something to look into.
Wednesday, I took the first step and whittled down the total number. There is still quite a few – over 80 –, but it’s a beginning. I think I’ll leave it there for now.
Current Categories
- America
- American History
- Arkansas
- Around home
- beliefs
- blog
- blogging
- civil war
- climate change
- Colorado
- commentary
- copyright
- critters
- disaster
- environment
- Eyes of the Great Depression
- family
- festival
- finance
- fitness
- food
- General
- give me a break!
- global warming
- Great Depression
- Haw Creek
- health
- hiking
- history
- holidays
- humor
- Illinois
- in the news
- internet
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Maryland
- media/news
- Montana
- mountains
- museums
- Nebraska
- New York
- North Carolina
- nuclear energy
- Oklahoma
- on the road
- parks
- people
- perception
- photography
- plants
- politics
- quilting
- racism
- retirement
- running
- RVs
- science
- serendipity
- shopping
- South Dakota
- sun
- sunspot
- tanstaafl!
- taxes
- Tennessee
- tips and hints
- training
- travel
- travel journal
- Utah
- values
- video
- vintage images
- vintage photos
- Virginia
- volcano
- weather
- Wednesday Weigh-In
- West Virginia
- wild fires
- Wisconsin
- WordPress
- work
- writing
- Wyoming
This relook at categories came about as a result of a post on Lorelle VanFossen’s blog, Lorelle on WordPress.
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{ 14 comments }
Hi Mike,
I use categories, I used to have a lot, but I narrowed the list down to nine. I had so many categories, I couldn’t help but think the reader might find it overwhelming. I know I did.
That certainly sounds manageable. I think that I might end up with more than nine, if I go back to using categories, but there will be far less than what I have now.
I started out using categories and had about 20, but nothing ever fit into an existing category. Finally I got sick of it and decided to have fun with it the way Becky does on Mommy Wants Vodka. She has a category “Kelp Knitting,” for example.
Dot – I think I should be able to whittle down to existing categories that I can use. If I do go back to using categories, if nothing fits, I can let it go with the default “general” category.
Sounds like a good plan. At least some of the stuff you write about is related. Not me.
Oops! I should have said Jannie of Jannie Funster was the one who does kelp knitting.
Now that makes sense. I can see Jannie doing categories like that.
I guess part of why I didn’t see much use in them was that I usually don’t look at the categories that other people use. However, when I wanted to create index to Eyes of the Great Depression, I used that category to locate all of them. In the process of doing that, I found that there were about 10 that had lost the links to the pictures. So they can work for both navigation and site maintenance.
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I’m thinking that they may also be useful for blog post planning. I’m not sure how I would approach that — still more to think about.
/
I’m really liking this new plug-in.
Hi Mike – I recently added categories because I wanted to take advantage of the hierarchical (try saying AND typing that, wow) capabilities in the latest WP upgrade. So Travel now has subcategories, which I wanted for so long. Then I went back and assigned categories to two years worth of blog posts. Again, WP 3.01 makes this easy to do in the Posts list with quick edit feature. This would have been an impossibly onerous task in earlier versions. I think I’ve got about 6 or 7 main categories, with subs in several.
Why do this at all? Well, somehow all of our disparate subjects, topics and related businesses are starting to cluster into a whole. What that entity really is remains to be seen, but there’s a definite glimmer!
Betsy – That sounds like a plan. I used the quick edit to consolidate some similar categories, by checking the desired one and unchecking the the one I was going to delete. Still, going back through several years of posts is a daunting tasks. I still have too many new posts to get out to even think about going back to the old, yet.
I do, and far too many. It has been on my mind to whittle them down…… some day.
Grannymar – Me, too. Just one more thing on my
procrastinationto-do listMike,
That’s a lot of categories:~) I use categories, but very few subcategories. Actually, to be truthful, I find that I have between one and three major categories that get the most posts. Something for me to think about.
Seeing your work makes me want to consider going back and breaking the categories down a a bit more. It might easier for a reader to find a post they want to check out.
I’m very impressed with what you did!
Sara – I’d guess that most of my posts could be put into far fewer categories. Whatever the number ends up being, it needs to be manageable without too much effort expended — and what I had before wasn’t. I’m don’t think that over 80 is the right number for what I do. Right now, I’m thinking that less than 20 top level categories might be a worthy goal for me. It’ll not be a high priority, though. Too much else to do. However, I will start using categories and, as I do, I think the hierarchical structure may develop if I just put a little thought in on each post.
Hey Mike, odd I would bump into this post regarding categories, I was thinking of writing post on the topic myself.
I am currently using some categories but there is no tabs available for visitors to browse through. I had the same thought that the categories were not of much use, but in my type of blog they would have been very helpful. I am going to go through the process and clean them up a bit much like yourself, I’ll see what I come up with.
It seemed that when I would make a post it never quite fit into one certain category or any at all.
Jenny — “tabs” …. Hmmm…. Incorporating categories as part of the blog navigation structure might be a good end goal. I’ll have to ponder on that a bit.
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