Custom Taxonomy Builder

Create custom taxonomies to organize your content beyond standard categories and tags. Perfect for filtering products by brand, recipes by cuisine, or properties by location.

Use Cases#

• Create “Cuisine” and “Meal Type” taxonomies to filter recipes by multiple criteria
• Build “Brand”, “Color”, and “Size” taxonomies for product filtering in e-commerce
• Add “Region” and “City” taxonomies to organize business listings geographically
• Create “Skill Level” taxonomy for tutorials or courses
• Build “Industry” taxonomy for case studies or portfolio items

How It Works#

1. Navigate to Switchboard → Taxonomy Builder
2. Click “Add New Taxonomy”
3. Enter a name (e.g., “Cuisine”) and select which post types to attach it to
4. Choose between hierarchical (like categories) or flat (like tags)
5. Save, and the taxonomy appears in your selected post types’ edit screens

Where to Find It#

Location: Switchboard → Taxonomy Builder in your WordPress admin menu.

Creating a Custom Taxonomy#

Basic Settings#

Taxonomy Types#

Hierarchical (like Categories)

• Parent/child relationships
• Checkbox selection in editor
• Great for: Locations, categories, nested classifications

Flat (like Tags)

• No parent/child relationships
• Comma-separated input or tag cloud
• Great for: Attributes, keywords, features

Post Type Assignment#

Select which post types your taxonomy applies to:

• Posts
• Pages
• Custom post types you’ve created

You can assign one taxonomy to multiple post types if they share the same classification needs.

Advanced Options#

Example: Recipe Taxonomies#

For a food blog, create these taxonomies:

Cuisine (Hierarchical)

• Italian
  • Pasta
  • Pizza
• Asian
  • Chinese
  • Japanese
  • Thai

Meal Type (Flat)

• Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack, Dessert

Diet (Flat)

• Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten-Free, Keto, Dairy-Free

Using Your Taxonomies#

In the Post Editor#

Once created, your taxonomy appears in the post editor sidebar:

• Hierarchical: Checkbox list (like Categories)
• Flat: Tag-style input (like Tags)

Displaying on the Frontend#

Archive Pages#

Taxonomies automatically create archive pages:

https://yoursite.com/cuisine/italian/
https://yoursite.com/meal-type/breakfast/

In Templates#

Display taxonomy terms in your templates:

<?php
// Get terms assigned to current post
$cuisines = get_the_terms(get_the_ID(), 'cuisine');
if ($cuisines) {
    echo '<div class="cuisines">';
    foreach ($cuisines as $cuisine) {
        echo '<a href="' . get_term_link($cuisine) . '">' . $cuisine->name . '</a>';
    }
    echo '</div>';
}
?>

List All Terms#

Display all terms in a taxonomy:

<?php
$cuisines = get_terms([
    'taxonomy' => 'cuisine',
    'hide_empty' => true,
]);

foreach ($cuisines as $cuisine) {
    echo '<a href="' . get_term_link($cuisine) . '">' . $cuisine->name . '</a>';
}
?>

Filtering with WP_Query#

Query posts by taxonomy:

<?php
$italian_recipes = new WP_Query([
    'post_type' => 'recipe',
    'tax_query' => [
        [
            'taxonomy' => 'cuisine',
            'field' => 'slug',
            'terms' => 'italian',
        ],
    ],
]);
?>

Admin Column#

Enable “Show Admin Column” to see taxonomy terms directly in the post list table. This makes it easy to:

• Quickly see which terms are assigned to each post
• Click a term to filter the list by that term
• Identify posts that need categorization

FAQ#