Custom Taxonomies in WordPress

Do you want to create Custom Taxonomies for your WordPress Website?
Looking for the best guide, that you can create programmatically custom Taxonomies in WordPress Website?

Today In this article, we’ll show you, how to create programmatically Custom Taxonomies in WordPress website as well as how to display them in your website single posts/pages or any template.

WordPress has been included in custom taxonomies in WordPress version 3.0 as a core feature. WordPress taxonomies allow you to group posts in conjunction with more than just tags and categories.

Fortunately, WordPress allows organizing your website contents with categories and tags.

This process for doing is very simple. How to create WordPress taxonomies and update taxonomies will enable you to better organize your website, and help website visitors find what they’re looking for more rapidly.

What is a Taxonomy?

If you’re using WordPress as a blog, you’re already using taxonomies but you just may not know them by that name.

A WordPress taxonomy is simply a system of coordinated information. A WordPress taxonomy, specifically, establishes WordPress posts.

WordPress website has two taxonomies by default that can be organized: Categories and Tags.

We think you had got an idea about WordPress Taxonomies. We have just tried to give a simple idea about WordPress Taxonomies.

If you think that you haven’t gotten enough an ideas about WordPress Taxonomies, read more here WordPress Taxonomies details.

Creating Custom Taxonomies Using PHP Function

Add this code in your active theme functions.php file

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//hook into the init action and call create_book_taxonomies when it fires
add_action( 'init', 'create_topics_hierarchical_taxonomy', 0 );
  
//create a custom taxonomy name it topics for your posts
  
function create_topics_hierarchical_taxonomy() {
  
// Add new taxonomy, make it hierarchical like categories
//first do the translations part for GUI
  
  $labels = array(
    'name' => _x( 'Topics', 'taxonomy general name' ),
    'singular_name' => _x( 'Topic', 'taxonomy singular name' ),
    'search_items' =>  __( 'Search Topics' ),
    'all_items' => __( 'All Topics' ),
    'parent_item' => __( 'Parent Topic' ),
    'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Topic:' ),
    'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Topic' ), 
    'update_item' => __( 'Update Topic' ),
    'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Topic' ),
    'new_item_name' => __( 'New Topic Name' ),
    'menu_name' => __( 'Topics' ),
  );    
  
// Now register the taxonomy
  
  register_taxonomy('topics',array('post'), array(
    'hierarchical' => true,
    'labels' => $labels,
    'show_ui' => true,
    'show_admin_column' => true,
    'query_var' => true,
    'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'topic' ),
  ));
  
}

To create a non-hierarchical custom taxonomy eg Tags, add this code in your active theme functions.php file.

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//hook into the init action and call create_topics_nonhierarchical_taxonomy when it fires
  
add_action( 'init', 'create_topics_nonhierarchical_taxonomy', 0 );
  
function create_topics_nonhierarchical_taxonomy() {
  
// Labels part for the GUI
  
  $labels = array(
    'name' => _x( 'Topics', 'taxonomy general name' ),
    'singular_name' => _x( 'Topic', 'taxonomy singular name' ),
    'search_items' =>  __( 'Search Topics' ),
    'popular_items' => __( 'Popular Topics' ),
    'all_items' => __( 'All Topics' ),
    'parent_item' => null,
    'parent_item_colon' => null,
    'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Topic' ), 
    'update_item' => __( 'Update Topic' ),
    'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Topic' ),
    'new_item_name' => __( 'New Topic Name' ),
    'separate_items_with_commas' => __( 'Separate topics with commas' ),
    'add_or_remove_items' => __( 'Add or remove topics' ),
    'choose_from_most_used' => __( 'Choose from the most used topics' ),
    'menu_name' => __( 'Topics' ),
  ); 
  
// Now register the non-hierarchical taxonomy like tag
  
  register_taxonomy('topics','post',array(
    'hierarchical' => false,
    'labels' => $labels,
    'show_ui' => true,
    'show_admin_column' => true,
    'update_count_callback' => '_update_post_term_count',
    'query_var' => true,
    'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'topic' ),
  ));
}

Look at the difference between the two codes. The expenses for the hierarchical argument are True for category-like taxonomy and False for tags-like taxonomies. Also in the labels array for non-hierarchical taxonomy, I have added null for parent_item and parent_item_colon arguments.

Displaying Custom Taxonomies in WordPress Website

Displaying you’re creating a custom taxonomy on your single post page. Add this code in your single.php file within the loop:

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Also, You can add this code to other files as well such as archive.php or index.php, and anywhere else you want to display the custom taxonomy.

WordPress Custom Taxonomies Using Free Plugin

WordPress categories and tags are awesome. As the standard of WordPress, there are both ways has to create a custom taxonomy in WordPress Website.

So, We are going to share with you, how to create custom taxonomies in WordPress using a Free plugin.

We recommend these plugins for the Custom Taxonomies: Custom Post Type UI and Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields. Both plugins are based on user reviews and ease of use.

Learn more, how to use Pods plugin:

Custom Post Type UI:
Login Your WordPress Admin panel: To Plugin -> Add Plugin -> Search keyword Custom Post Type UI

Custom Taxonomies in WordPress

Instill and active Custom Post Type UI plugin go to admin panel left menu and you will see one extra menu like CPT UI and click Add edit post type

Now, you can create custom post types and taxonomies for your website.

Also, You can use the Plugin documentation to display taxonomies or how to use this plugin.

Conclusion

We hope this article helps you create custom taxonomies in the WordPress website.

We try to make the custom taxonomies in WordPress very easy way. We think this way is the best and most simple way for you. if you follow the above tutorial, you will be able to create custom taxonomies for your website.

If you think this guide is very inflexible for you, you can use a free plugin for your website’s custom taxonomies.

You can hire our services to create custom taxonomies or customize WordPress websites. Check our services below!

If you have any questions, please feel free comment to below.

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How to Create Custom Taxonomies in WordPress Step by Step Guide