arrowA Like Minded Individual
Introducing Cimbrian’s Geek Camp arrow

Category Base Removal Plugin

Comments | Print this Post | Email this Post | Rate this Post | Related Posts

The Category Base Killer Plugin does exactly what it says. It removes the “category/” text from your WordPress URL string.

In other words, it turns your URL string from this:

http://www.myblog.com/category/category_name/post_title.htm

into this:

http://www.myblog.com/category_name/post_title.htm

Download

Download the Category Base Killer Plugin (.zip)

Installation Instructions

  1. Unzip category-base-killer.zip to your “wp-content/plugins” directory
  2. Log in to your WordPress admin account
  3. Click the “Plugins” tabs
  4. Click “activate” next to “Category Base Killer”
  5. Click the “Options” tab
  6. Click the “Permalinks” sub-tab
  7. Make sure that “%category%” (without quotes) appears somewhere in your permalink structure. Otherwise when you click on your category archive links, you’ll encounter a 404 error.

Version

1.0 - Public Release

Top | Comments | Print this Post | Email this Post | Rate this Post | Related Posts

  • Help Me Improve!

  • The only way for my posts to get better is to get your opinion! So help me out, and rate this one! Thanks!
    18 Votes | Average: 3.78 out of 518 Votes | Average: 3.78 out of 518 Votes | Average: 3.78 out of 518 Votes | Average: 3.78 out of 518 Votes | Average: 3.78 out of 5
    Avg. Rating: 3.78 - Total Votes: 18
    Loading ... Loading ...


68 Responses to “Category Base Removal Plugin”

  1. Kyle says:
    July 20th, 2007 at 10:25 am

    good find!

  2. Brian says:
    July 20th, 2007 at 10:43 am

    Good find? I wrote it. ;-) It’s not going to win me any awards or anything, it’s 80% comments and 20% code, but I thought it was time somebody wrote the damn thing.

  3. Nick says:
    July 20th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    I like the thought of this. The problem I am running into, though, is that pages of previous posts within the category bring up a 404 error. For example, when the address changes to something like this it no longer works… www.mysite.com/mycat/page/2/

    Do you know of a workaround to that?

  4. David says:
    July 21st, 2007 at 3:30 am

    Thanks for the plugin! Just when I was beginning to think I would have to write it myself… :-)

  5. Mateus says:
    August 31st, 2007 at 6:14 pm

    I’m having the same problem as Nick (#3). Subcategories root are not shown properly.

    Take a look:
    http://www.superdicas.de/seriados - This works
    http://www.superdicas.de/seriados/heroes/segunda-temporada-trailers - This works too
    http://www.superdicas.de/seriados/heroes - Error 404 Not Found

    If anyone got a solution please share here or drop me an e-mail: mateus (at) superdicas.de

  6. Mateus says:
    August 31st, 2007 at 6:38 pm

    A quick solution to the subcats problem (not the best at all but it works):
    - change the Permalink to /%category%/%postname%.html/

  7. Brian says:
    August 31st, 2007 at 8:14 pm

    Hey Mateus! Thanks for the comment. I haven’t tried your solution, but thanks (I plan to), but thanks in advance!

  8. Remove The Category Base » Ben Partch - Learn, Teach, Create… says:
    October 31st, 2007 at 5:50 pm

    […] Then last night Dan asked about this same issue. I informed him of my inability to figure out a way to remove it. Then a little later he sends me a link to a Google search he did when I see this page: Category Base Removal Plugin I am glad to report that this plugin does exactly what I wanted. Thanks to both Dan (for the link) and especially the plugin author Brian! […]

  9. francesco says:
    November 24th, 2007 at 5:48 am

    Hi Brian, thank you for your release….

    I’ve a little problem, I’ve installed the plugin and it works good, but when I try to go in the second page of a category to see some posts early, I obtain a 404 error.. Could you help me to fix it?

    I’ve 2.3.1 wordpress version….

    Thank’s a lot

  10. Brian says:
    November 24th, 2007 at 10:57 am

    Have you tried Mateus’s suggestion (above #6)?

  11. Come rimuovere la base category dai permalinks | Nemoprincess Blog says:
    November 25th, 2007 at 5:14 am

    […] C’è un plugin che lo fa Category Base Removal Plugin, e lo fa apportando questa modifica al file wp-includes/rewrite.php: […]

  12. Mike G says:
    January 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

    You have no idea how much better my life (and website) is now. Thanks a ton!

  13. Brian says:
    January 24th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    Wow. Thanks! Glad it worked out!

  14. NineDesign.org - Remove ‘Category Base’ From Wordpress URL’s says:
    January 25th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    […] Download […]

  15. Lorelle says:
    February 5th, 2008 at 11:27 am

    Have you been able to fix the bug so subcategories will work without an html extension on the pretty permalinks? Many don’t want the extensions any more but they want to be rid of the category label.

    Thanks!

  16. Wordpress SEO in a few steps | Yakiji says:
    February 7th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

    […] Category Base Killer - removes the “category/” base text from the URL string. […]

  17. Greg says:
    February 12th, 2008 at 8:31 pm

    Anyone found a fix for the problem reported by Nick#3 above - i.e. for the 404 error for /page/2/ ?

  18. Dan Schulz says:
    February 16th, 2008 at 2:02 am

    Hey Brian (and everyone else)

    I’m the guy who found the plugin that Ben Partch was referring to in his trackback link a few months back.

    For those of you who are having problems with category pages (such as /page/2/) throwing 404 errors, the ONLY way I can see without neutering WordPress would be to use a file extension (such as .htm .html or .php).

    If you still think the issue is with the plugin, it’s not. I went into WordPress itself (WordPress 2.3.1 on my end) and modified the wp-includes/rewrite.php file on Lines 389 and 390 to remove

    $this->category_structure = $this->front . ‘category/’; else

    And got the EXACT SAME RESULTS as the plugin - a 404 being thrown on the subcategory pages (including category/subcategory and /category/page/2 if you’re wondering).

    I’d have to say that short of using the file extension, there’s nothing we can do other than to bug the WordPress developers to actually sit down and FIX THIS once and for all.

    Just figured I’d let you all know.

  19. Brian says:
    February 17th, 2008 at 7:52 am

    I wonder if a “fix” of sorts could be hacked together in .htaccess?

  20. Dan Schulz says:
    February 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    To the best of my knowledge, others have tried, but to no avail.

  21. 10 Wordpress plugins you just might like says:
    March 1st, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    […] This plugin is simple, but has a massive effect on your categories. What it does it when you activate this plugin, it removes the /category/ directory from your links. It can solve a few URL problems you may be having as your pages have the same link structure. Download Category Base Removal Plugin. […]

  22. Ian says:
    March 4th, 2008 at 12:39 am

    I’m new to WP. This is the single biggest problem I’ve run into with WP - I do not want to use the .htm hack since Google does not seem to like it - these pages don’t get indexed well. but the pages without the hack (with broken subcat or page/2) work great and were indexed fine. Arrrgh.

    I don’t want to give up and use a base category, because once I do that, I’ll pollute my indexing on google with the stupid base category and even once the WP gods fix it, i’ll be in a permalink redirect mess forever. Similarly, I don’t want to use a .html / .htm hack. This really sucks.

  23. icePig » Blog Archive » Remove ‘Category Base’ From Wordpress URL’s says:
    March 12th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    […] Get Category Base Removal plugin […]

  24. Aaron Rivera says:
    March 16th, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    iN Regards to November 24th, 2007 at 5:48 am
    I’ve a little problem, I’ve installed the plugin and it works good, but when I try to go in the second page of a category to see some posts early, I obtain a 404 error.. Could you help me to fix it?

    I’ve 2.3.1 wordpress version….
    I wonder if it is worth the headache can someone reply to the recent update??/ is this problem fixed yet the Category Base Killer I mean.
    http://www.sleekbuisness.com

  25. SEO for Wordpress | Ann Arbor Native Living in Columbus - DavidMark.com says:
    March 31st, 2008 at 10:00 am

    […] The next thing I do is use Category Base Killer to remove the /category/ directory from many of the links - that way I don’t have as many duplicate content issues since all the pages will have the same link structure. […]

  26. Dan Schulz says:
    March 31st, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    In regards to comments #22 and #24, the problem isn’t with the Category Base Killer plugin - it’s with WordPress itself. So there’s nothing that Brian can do until the WordPress developers fix the problem themselves.

    Please refer to my comment here for more information:
    https://brianshoff.com/wordpress/category-base-removal-plugin.htm#comment-1544

  27. Dan Schulz says:
    April 25th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

    Now that WordPress 2.5.1 is out, I figured I’d upgrade and see how well the 2.5 branch works. I had been told that the plugin’s features had finally been incorporated into the publishing system.

    Whoever told me that was wrong.

    Not only is the problem STILL not resolved, but the plugin appears to be incomaptible with WordPress 2.5.x

    WHAT GIVES? Do I have to personally start a site to make WordPress aware of the duplicate content problems their system is causing, not to mention the usability issues (such as confusing visitors with multiple links to the same Posts) and the fact that hacking the rewrite.php file (which now requires removing “%category%” - without quotes of course - from line 439 in WordPress 2.5.1) still causes 404 errors to be thrown faster than fine china in a domestic arguement between spouses unless you use a file extension?

    (And no Brian, this is not your fault - I lay the blame for this SNAFU squarely at Automattic’s feet.)

  28. Brian says:
    April 25th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    :: hold hands in the air hopping around the room ::

    TESTIFY! ;-)

    It’s such a nuisance. I like WP, but like anything, it has its problems. I haven’t upgraded my sites yet… need to put that on my “next actions” list I guess…?

  29. Dan Schulz says:
    April 25th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    I would. I’m just wishing that they would have taken care of the category base problem by now. I’m also noticing some other issues that aren’t related to CBK, but ironically none of them have much to do with the dashboard’s new arrangement (it’s the features).

    Oh well, I’ll learn. :)

  30. InformationPile.com says:
    April 29th, 2008 at 2:09 am

    Thank You Thank you Thank You… :D

  31. John says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 4:33 am

    Is this version 1.0 plugin adviseable on a new 2.5 or 2.5.1 installation? I would like to fix this category oddity early in my install.

  32. Brian says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 7:58 am

    I haven’t heard of any issues with this plugin in regards to v 2.5 or 2.5.1

    The good news is… it doesn’t do much. ;-) It’s just a filter. So if it breaks, you can safely turn it off w/o negatively effecting your install.

  33. Dan Schulz says:
    May 5th, 2008 at 12:55 am

    Uhm Brian, I mentioned a few comments up (#27, in fact) that it DOES break in WordPress 2.5.1, remember? :(

  34. Category Base in Wordpress deaktivieren - WhiteSide SEO says:
    May 19th, 2008 at 9:04 am

    […] In meinen Blogs nutze ich seit ich sie aufgesetzt habe das Category-Base-Killer Plugin von Brian Shoff. Dies hat wunderbare Dienste geleistet, bis ich die Migration der besagten Seite angegangen bin und mit Unterkategorien an die Grenzen des Plugins gestoßen bin. Diese schneidet das Plugin nämlich auch einfach ab und erzeugt so schöne 404er beim Klick auf die Kategorie. […]

  35. wd_2k6 says:
    June 5th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    This is bad news so I guess we have only 2 options:

    1. Have the /category/ inside the URL
    2. Have a file exstension e.g .htm

    Both of the options suck! What was the point in implementing /category/ in the first place.

    I’m not sure if anybody else is having this problem but the CATEGORY feeds cannot be accessed unless /category/ is added to the URL, e.g http://yoursite.com/category-name/feed/ will not work.

    Any workarounds anybody!!

  36. Chris Poirier says:
    June 27th, 2008 at 5:57 am

    What I’ve done to get around the /category/ problem is to make it a virtue. I put a “title” Page for each category, then link to the /category/%category%/ page for archives and RSS feed. The permalinks work, and the paging works — just not in the same place. Won’t work for everybody (depends on how you use your categories), but it did end up working out well for me.

  37. WordPressのパーマリンク構造をスッキリさせる | Imai Blog! says:
    July 8th, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    […] などと、これまた長くて余計だ。 カテゴリーベースの設定で、文字列は変更できるが、空白にしたところで、上記デフォルトが適用される。 そこで、Category Base Killer というプラグインを使ってみると、有効化するだけで上記空白の設定が可能となる。 http://www.example.com/information/ […]

  38. Wordpress SEO Tips - SEO Web Tips blog says:
    July 8th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

    […] This useful plugin removes the “category/” text from your Wordpress permalinks. Combined with “pretty” permalinks, you can get very elegant URLs. http://example.com/post-name/ You can download Category Base Killer here. […]

  39. casinomy says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    Постоянно обновляемый каталог лучших в интернете казино и лотерей с описанием их особенностей. Бесплатные мгновенная лотерея и игровой автомат с реальными призами! Интеллектуальные игры - соревнования за денежные призы. Новости. Доска объявлений.

  40. Mark says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 6:13 am

    Life saver, just downloaded after fruitless days of searching with no success and it works even on the latest version of Wordpress which is currently 2.6

  41. Mark says:
    July 16th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Just to add to my post 40

    I have tested this plugin on a couple of designs, and on some designs it works, but with some it does not work properly and comes up with 404 errors.

    Sadly not a 100% solution, but this would be dependent upon the design of the Wordpress theme that you are useing.

    Shame it does not work 100% did have high hopes for this.

    Regards

    Mark

  42. YN design　yukinachu.com » Blog Archive » Category-base-killer says:
    August 12th, 2008 at 9:14 pm

    […] category/　をはぶいてくれるプラグイン　category-base-killer（ダウンロードはこちら） をアップして有効にすると 結果 http://yukinachu.com/actionscript/ […]

  43. pailmclib says:
    August 15th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    Абсолютно бесплатная система управления DNS Лёгкий в использовании дружественный интерфейс. Удобное управление записями для доменных имён. Настройка Gmail от Google Apps на Вашем домене в один клик. Простая настройка переадресации домена. Онлайн утилиты Ping, Whois, Ip lookup, DNS lookup

  44. links for 2008-08-22 « Free Open Source Directory says:
    August 22nd, 2008 at 8:03 pm

    […] Category Base Removal Plugin - BrianShoff.com The Category Base Killer Plugin does exactly what it says. It removes the “category/” text from your WordPress URL string. […]

  45. Aviagra says:
    August 31st, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    I loved the post. I think your thinking is nearly matching the great sukrat’s cocept.

  46. VietNam WordPress Club » Wordpress SEO Plugins says:
    September 18th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

    […] Category Base Killer – This is my favorite Wordpress SEO plugin and I’ve never created a blog without using it. This plugin actually removes the /category/ section in your permalinks. This is a optimal search engine optimization move since your removing a useless section of your URL structure. Make sure to read the instructions properly on how to implement this Wordpress SEO plugin. […]

  47. webdiarios.com, blog de noticias - quitar “category” en wordpress says:
    September 19th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    […] Despues de leer paginas y mas paginas sobre como quitar la palabra “category” en los permalinks de wordpress, he encontrado una solucion que a mi me funciona perfectamente en 4 blogs diferentes. Se trata de Category Base Killer Plugin. Solo 2 cositas a tener en cuenta para que funcione bien: […]

  48. 12 Wordpress SEO Plugins to Optimize Your Business Blog | Web About Money says:
    September 22nd, 2008 at 2:54 am

    […] Category Base Killer – This is my favorite Wordpress SEO plugin and I’ve never created a blog without using it. This plugin actually removes the /category/ section in your permalinks. This is a optimal search engine optimization move since your removing a useless section of your URL structure. Make sure to read the instructions properly on how to implement this Wordpress SEO plugin.  […]

  49. Plugin Wordpress Yang Cocok Untuk SEO | Rumah Abi says:
    September 24th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    […] Category Base Killer – Jika permalink blog anda di set seperti ini /%category%//%postname%/ dan dalam satu posting anda mempunyai lebih dari satu kategori, misalnya : […]

  50. Ozgur says:
    September 27th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    Hi,
    Thank you for this plugin it works perfect.But it creates a problem on sitemap.Im using Google XML Sitemaps plugin and its create my posts url:

    http://www.dokumanarsivi.com//koc-kadini-ve-terazi-erkegi/

    it should be

    http://www.dokumanarsivi.com/astroloji/koc-kadini-ve-terazi-erkegi/

    can you suggest a solution about this problem?

  51. Ionutz says:
    October 13th, 2008 at 9:13 am

    when i use the plugin for the top level categories anything is fine , but when i add a subcategory, or a category with a parent, it doesnt work.

    please fix this problem and if possible email me with a solution

    thanks for the great job

  52. today’s links on ma.gnolia | Folks Pants says:
    October 30th, 2008 at 1:45 am

    […] Category Base Removal Plugin - BrianShoff.com […]

  53. My web notables… | Folks Pants Unlimited Love & Peace Project says:
    October 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am

    […] Category Base Removal Plugin - BrianShoff.com In conjunction with Yoast breadcrumb plugin, you get a pretty cool way of avoiding archives pages using breadcrumbs. […]

  54. Yazerty says:
    October 31st, 2008 at 10:19 am

    It’s a great idea, but this is a tip : just add “/.” (without “”) in admin -> permalinks -> cat. prefix
    This delete “category/” :-) !!!

  55. Remove The Category Base From Wordpress says:
    October 31st, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    […] You’ve got the Category Base Killer plugin which seemed to work fine at first, but pagination wouldn’t work and apparently there is a problem with having a subcategory or a category with a parent. […]

  56. http://yallagroup.net says:
    November 1st, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    thanks,
    I want my Topics To Be As :
    http://example .com/post-name

    How Can I Do This
    I Know There Are Code .. Ritten In (.htaccess) File
    But, What Is This Code !!

  57. Joakim says:
    November 16th, 2008 at 11:39 am

    This doen’t work with WordPress 2.6.3, right? I can’t get it to work but want and I do NOT want to edit my URL:s from the old site because of upgrading WordPress.

    Do you have any plans to make it work fine with WP 2.6.3?

    Thanks for a great job!

  58. category base removal - Wordpress Plugins says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 6:40 pm

    […] Link structure is important for your Wordpress blog both in looks and functionality. No one likes a daunting looking link, not even search engines, so the Category Base Removal plugin is a godsend for your blog. […]

  59. Category Base Killer Plugin says:
    November 25th, 2008 at 1:11 am

    […] ダウンロード オフィシャルサイト […]

  60. Brian says:
    November 28th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    After a long enough… I’m actually going to take a stab at handling the issues everyone has been nice enough to identify for me. Wish me luck! I’ll feel pretty good about it when it’s finished. :-)

  61. Dan Schulz says:
    December 1st, 2008 at 10:11 pm

    Brian,

    Thanks for posting the update. I’m definately glad to see you’re going to tackle the issues with this Plugin (which are also inherent in Top Level Cats). If you need a guinea pig - I mean torture subject - er - I mean beta tester, you have my email address. :)

    – Dan

  62. Brian says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 7:06 am

    I’ve been chipping away at it - and WOW - what a PITA! I’ll keep poking it with a stick though. I feel like I get so close… and then something small pops up and ruins everything. Always a small detail.

    My investigation so far as led me to this…

    As is, the plugin works fine for:
    http://domain.com/page/2/

    It breaks for
    http://domain.com/cat/page/2/

    The reason for this, is the category ID is lost when mod_rewrite tries to do its thing… hence… 404.

    What I’m trying to figure out now… is how to pass the category ID and not having the easiest go of it.

  63. » Problemini vari con wordpress says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 1:34 am

    […] Ti faccio vedere come ho settato il mio. In Permalinks ho scelto "custom structure" (non so come l’hanno tradotto in italiano, ma e’ l’ultima di 5, sotto a "default") e ci ho messo /%category%/%postname%.html. Poi in Platinum SEO (se usi All in One SEO dovrebbe essere uguale) ho Post title format: %post_title% | %blog_title% Page title format: %page_title% | %blog_title% Category title format: %category_title% | %blog_title% Prova a vedere se il tuo e’ settato cosi’. Ho poi installato un ottimo plugin che si chiama Category Base Removal Plugin che rimuove la parola "categoria" dagli URL. Cosi’ anziche’ avere tuo-sito.it/categoria/nome-categoria/.titolo-del-post.html avrai tuo-sito.it/nome-categoria/.titolo-del-post.html. […]

  64. パーマリンクを修正する - Template Style says:
    December 21st, 2008 at 11:40 pm

    […] になるように修正します。 まず、インストールした状態でカテゴリーのパーマリンクに入ってる “category/” を削除するために、Category Base Killer プラグインを WordPress にインストールして、有効にします。これで、カテゴリーのパーマリンクが、 […]

  65. WordPressの初期設定 パーマリンクと”.htaccess” :: 繊彩 says:
    December 31st, 2008 at 12:48 am

    […] Category Base Removal Plugin https://brianshoff.com/wordpress/category-base-removal-plugin.htm […]

  66. Another Coder says:
    December 31st, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    Brian,

    You can try to use the Pathless Category Links plugin from WordPress: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pathless-category-links/

    That has a work around for the /page/ issue.

  67. A Plea for WordPress Help | Trevor Davis says:
    January 5th, 2009 at 11:35 pm

    […] Category Base Killer […]

  68. Joan Piedra says:
    April 13th, 2009 at 8:02 am

    Hey Brian,
    I solved the category pagination and category feeds using .htaccess.

    Take a look at:
    http://joanpiedra.com/wordpress/remove-category-suffix-permalink/

    # remove the category suffix - by Joan Piedra
    # http://joanpiedra.com/wordpress/remove-category-suffix-permalink
    RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/(page/([0-9]+)|feed)$ index.php/category/$1/$2 [L]

    # redirect everything else to wordpress
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [L]

    Regards,
    Joan.

Leave a Comment

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
34 queries. 1.141 seconds.