If you’ve ever wanted to rename the WordPress category “Uncategorized,” you’re not alone. WordPress newbies frequently ask us if they can remove or rename the uncategorized category in WordPress. We’ll show you how to rename the uncategorized category and change the default category in WordPress in this article.
What exactly is the Default Category in WordPress?
The two default taxonomies that come with every new WordPress installation are categories and tags. WordPress posts should be filed under at least one category by default.
If you don’t assign a category to your post, it will be filed under your default category. This default category is titled ‘Uncategorized’ on a new WordPress installation.
Normally, you can delete a category by going to Posts » Categories. However, you cannot delete a default category until another category is assigned to be the default.
There are two options for dealing with this problem. You have the option of renaming the default category from uncategorized to something more meaningful, or you can create a new default category.
After that, let’s look at how to rename the uncategorized category or set a new default category.
Changing the name of the category “Uncategorized” in WordPress
A default category cannot be deleted, but it can be renamed. In the WordPress admin, go to Posts » Categories and click on the edit link beneath the Uncategorized category.
This will take you to the category edit screen, where you can rename and change the URL slug of your category.
You can change the URL slug if your site is not live or indexed by search engines.
If your site is already up and running, changing the URL slug will result in 404 errors when search engines or actual users visit the old URL.
Don’t worry, we’ll go over how to set up redirects later in this article.
Changing the WordPress Default Category
In WordPress, you can swiftly change the default category. To begin, ensure that you have a category other than uncategorized available.
You can skip this step if you have a category that you want to use as the default. Alternatively, go to Posts » Categories and add a new category.
Now go to the Settings » Writing page. The first option on the page is to configure a default post category.
Click the drop-down menu next to it and choose the default category you want to use.
Do not hesitate to save your settings and click the Save Changes button.
WordPress will now use the category you chose as the default. If you fail to categorize a post, it will be filed under this default category.
Posts filed under uncategorized, on the other hand, will not be moved to the new category. You can change the category of those posts by editing them.
You can do it manually if there are only a few posts.
You can also get rid of the ‘Uncategorized’ category. If a post was only filed under uncategorized, it will be moved to your new default category automatically.
Changing the URL of an Old Uncategorised Topic
If your site was live when you renamed or deleted the uncategorized category slug, users and search engines will see a 404 page for the old URL.
Here’s how to easily fix it and redirect users to your new category URL or renamed URL.
You must first install and activate the Simple 301 Redirects plugin. See our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for more information.
Following activation, go to Settings » 301 Redirects and enter your old uncategorized URL in the Request field and your current URL in the destination field.
For example, if your previous uncategorized URL looked like this:
http://example.com/category/uncategorized/
Then, in the request field, type /category/uncategorized/.
You must enter the full new URL in the destination field. As an example:
http://example.com/category/general/
Do not hesitate to save your settings and click the Save Changes button.
That’s all there is to it. Visitors who arrive at your old ‘Uncategorized’ category URL will now be redirected to the new URL.
We hope this guide helped you learn how to rename an uncategorized category in WordPress as well as how to set a new default category.
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