Categories and tags
Group and filter posts using categories and tags
Categories and tags are two ways to organise posts. They serve different purposes and most blogs use both.
- A category is a primary grouping. Categories are typically a small, deliberate set ("Reviews", "Interviews", "Programme Notes"), and a post can belong to one or more categories.
- A tag is a freer label. Tags are usually a larger, looser set, and a post can have any number.
Both have their own pages on the live site, so visitors can browse "every post in the Reviews category" or "every post tagged with Mahler".
Categories
A category record contains:
- A title — the category's display name.
- An optional image.
Categories are scoped to a blog. A "Reviews" category in your news blog and a "Reviews" category in your programme-notes blog are separate records. This means each blog can have its own category structure without conflict.
Set a post's categories when creating or editing the post.
Tags
A tag record contains:
- A title — the tag's display name.
Tags are scoped to a blog. A "World Premiere" tag in your news blog and a "World Premiere" tag in your programme-notes blog are separate records. If you run several blogs and want to use the same vocabulary across them, set up the tag once per blog.
Set a post's tags when creating or editing the post. Adding a new tag creates a new tag record automatically; you don't need to set them up in advance.
When to use which
- A small, well-defined editorial structure ("News", "Reviews", "Interviews") → categories.
- An open-ended thematic vocabulary ("World Premiere", "Behind the Scenes", a composer name) → tags.
- Both — a post can sit in one or more categories and carry several tags.
Surface categories and tags on your blog (shareable links)
Every category and tag has its own page on the live site, and each has a fixed, shareable address you can link to from anywhere — a newsletter, a social post, or elsewhere on your site. Because the pages are scoped to a blog, the address always includes the blog:
- Category page —
/blogs/<blog>/categories/<category>, for example/blogs/news/categories/reviews. - Tag page —
/blogs/<blog>/tags/<tag>, for example/blogs/news/tags/world-premiere. You can combine tags with a+to require all of them, for example/blogs/news/tags/interview+behind-the-scenes.
To make these pages easy to find, ask whoever maintains your theme to surface links to them — for instance a list of categories in the blog sidebar, or the tags shown on each post linking through to their archive pages. The template references below show exactly how to build those links.
The category filter shown on some blog pages narrows the posts in your browser but does not change the page address, so you can't copy the address bar to share a filtered view. For a link you can send to someone, use the category or tag page addresses above — those are the shareable, bookmarkable versions.
Where to go next
Create a post
Assign a category and tags when creating a post.
Smart collections
Build dynamic listings that filter posts by category, tag, or author.
Category template
For theme developers: how the category archive page is built and linked.
Tag template
For theme developers: how the tag archive page is built and linked.