Change Post Categories: The Quick and Easy Way

Categories are one of the most powerful features of WordPress for helping visitors find more content that is similar, and to help Google understand the topics you write about the most.

But, as your blog grows, and as you learn more about SEO copy writing, you may need to make changes to your categories. You will take a short-term SEO hit for making these changes, as they will temporarily confuse Googlebots, but the long-term advantages are worth it.

I’ll show you 3 ways to do those category changes that make the job quick and easy.

You’ll see how to:

1. Change the category on a per post basis
2. Change the category name for all posts assigned to that category
3. Bulk move posts from one category to another

Be sure to take a backup of your database before you make any of these changes.

And, site tech changes all the time. Be sure to see the description or transcript below this video for any updates that may be available.

Transcript below the video.

---

Subscribe to BlogAid on YouTube
and Follow BlogAid on Facebook
for more helpful video tips

---

Transcript

Change Per Post

I’m on the Post list of one of my test sites that is full of dummy content.

The first example I’ll show you is great for changing the category on a per post basis.

One way to find all of the posts you have assigned to a specific category is to use the Category filter above the list.

Click the drop-down and select the category of posts you want to edit.

Then click the Filter button.

You’ll see a list of post titles that are all in that Category.

To change it, hover over the title area and click Quick Edit.

You can change a bunch of post parameters here, including:

• Title
• Slug – end of the permalink
• Date and time of publication
• Categories
• Tabs
• And even the published status

Scroll down the categories list to uncheck the box for the category from which you want to remove the post, and to select the new category you wish to use instead.

The super thing is, it really doesn’t matter which order you do those two things in, so make it easy on yourself and just use the alphabetical order of the list to check or uncheck as you scroll.

Once you’ve finished, click the Update button.

And then move on to the next post.

That’s great for changing one post at a time. But, what if you want to change the name of the Category so that all the posts assigned to that Category will follow along with the change.

Change Category Name and Slug

To change the Category name, go directly to the Categories list.

On the right you’ll see a full list of all your categories, and in the Count column, how many posts have been assigned to that category.

That should be the same list as we saw by using the Category filter in the post list in the previous example.

 To change the category name, hover near it and click the Quick Edit link.

Here you can change the name and the slug.

Keep in mind that any changes to the slug will break all previous links to the original category slug.

If you want to retain those click throughs, you’ll need to do a redirect.

You can also change the name without changing the slug to avoid that problem. The name carries more SEO weight than the slug.

And, bear in mind that all posts, pages, categories, and tags have slugs. So, be careful not to use a slug that is already in use, else you’ll get this -2 at the end.

When you’re finished, click the Update Category button.

Bulk Move Posts to New Category

What if you want to delete a category and move all the posts from it to another category?

WordPress has a built in way for you to do that.

• Return to your Posts list.
• And filter the posts by the category you will be emptying out.
• Click the checkbox by Title to select all of the posts.
• In Bulk Actions click Edit.
• Hit the Apply button.
• Check the box for the new category you want the posts to go into, and uncheck the box of the category you want to empty out.
• Once you’re finished, click the Update button.

As you can see, the posts are in both categories.

All you need to do is return to the Categories list and delete the original category.

Now all of the posts will only be in the new category.

That’s it!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this MaAnna Minute on the quick and easy ways to change post categories.

Be sure to subscribe to the BlogAid YouTube Channel and Facebook page and visit BlogAid.net for more helpful tips and tutorials.