Categories
Every listing belongs to exactly one category, and categories drive browsing, filtering, forms and much of your URL structure. They are the most consequential structural decision on the site.
Listings → Categories in the admin panel.
Adding a category
Section titled “Adding a category”Categories → Add category. A category needs a name per active language; the URL slug is derived from the name.
Nesting is one level in practice: a top-level category with children under it. Listings should sit in the leaf, not the parent.
Reordering
Section titled “Reordering”Drag categories into the order you want. This is the order visitors see when browsing, so put your busiest categories at the top rather than leaving them alphabetical.
Disabling versus deleting
Section titled “Disabling versus deleting”| Action | What happens to listings in it |
|---|---|
| Disable | The category and its listings stop appearing on the front end. Nothing is destroyed, and re-enabling brings it all back. |
| Delete | The category is removed along with the listings in it. |
Renaming and URLs
Section titled “Renaming and URLs”Renaming a category changes its slug, and therefore the URL of its browse page. ShopClass keeps a slug history so old category URLs continue to resolve, but external links and your own rankings still point at the old address for a while.
Rename early, or not at all.
Per-category settings
Section titled “Per-category settings”Editing a category exposes its own rules:
- Expiration (days) — how long a listing in this category lives. This is where listing expiry is set, not in the global listing settings.
- Price settings for the category.
- Apply the expiration and price changes to all subcategories — the option that saves you editing each child by hand.
Plugins add their own per-category configuration here too, which is what
t_plugin_category stores.
Fields per category
Section titled “Fields per category”Fields are attached to categories through forms, not directly. A Vehicles form holding Make, Model, Year and Fuel Type is attached to your vehicle categories, and its fields then appear on the publish form and in filters for those categories only.
Designing the tree
Section titled “Designing the tree”A few rules that hold up:
- Match your visitors’ words, not your industry’s. “Cars” beats “Automotive vehicles” every time.
- Do not create a category you cannot fill. Twelve empty categories look abandoned; three busy ones look alive. Add more as volume justifies them.
- Keep it shallow. Every extra level is another click between a visitor and a listing.
- Fewer, broader categories plus good filters beats a deep tree. Filters are what actually narrow a search — that is what forms and fields are for.