Looking for a quick way to remove the product-category from a Woocommerce URL? In this short article, you will learn how to delete permalink bases from your store's permalinks.
WooCommerce permalinks are one of the most important SEO factors to consider. Unfortunately, when it comes to personalizing your store URL addresses, WordPress itself does not provide much versatility. That is because, every custom post type or taxonomy, such as "products" or "product categories" must have its own rewrite base in order for WordPress to know what content to load.
Because short URLs are beneficial from an SEO standpoint, it may be reasonable to remove needless "product", "product-tag", and "product-category" from WooCommerce URL addresses.
Removing the /product/ and /product-category/ bases from your permalinks may just be the first step. You may totally customize your permalinks using Permalink Manager, including adding categories and other taxonomies, as well as custom fields such as SKU to product permalinks.
All of the steps in this article may be valuable not only for regular WooCommerce users, but also for those who have migrated from another platform.
Should you remove WooCommerce permalink bases for SEO reasons?
In general, even the length of your permalinks might have an impact on your SEO results. Despite the fact that several factors can affect the Google result, shorter URLs tend to outperform longer URLs.
Overall, this is an element of your SEO strategy that should be carefully analyzed, and it may be beneficial to make your URLs shorter. The most common way is to remove /product/ and /product-category/ base from the URLs. Because the WordPress permalink system does not allow it, you will need a third-party plugin.
This is possible with Permalink Manager Pro, and a sample set of WooCommerce permalinks is shown below to show you how they may appear.
http://example.com/polos/ (Product category)
http://example.com/cotton-wool-blend/ (Product tag)
http://example.com/pique-polo/ (Product)
The plugin capabilities are significantly wider. You are free to adjust your permalinks in any way you see suitable. Furthermore, you may manually update any of the individual URL addresses if necessary.
You can also use whatever permalink base you choose. That is, you may have all links use the same permalink structure, as demonstrated below.
http://example.com/clothes/polos/ (Product category)
http://example.com/clothes/cotton-wool-blend/ (Product tag)
http://example.com/clothes/pique-polo/ (Product)
How to remove /product/ & /product-category/ from WooCommerce permalinks?
Permalink Manager offers two simple methods to change WooCommerce permalinks. In brief, depending on your scenario, you can either modify the permalinks for each product or product category individually or change them all at once using the Permastructure editor. Both methods are explained in detail below.
How to bulk edit product, product categories and tags permalinks?
The Permastructure editor is the most easy and time-efficient method of reformatting your WooCommerce permalinks. Individual permalink editing may be time consuming, thus for bigger WooCommerce stores, the Permastructures editor is more convenient. With only a few clicks, you can apply a new WooCommerce permalink format to hundreds of URLs.
Replace native permastrucutres with custom ones
The first thing you should do after installing and activating Permalink Manager is to navigate to the "Permastructures" tab in the plugin's dashboard ("Tools -> Permalink Manager").
The WooCommerce content types are organized in a separate subsection for your convenience. You may then modify the permastructures for Products, Product Categories, and Product Tags.
You may now replace the permalink bases /product/, /product-category/, and /product-tag/ with any word you choose or delete them entirely. Please remember to save the updated options by clicking the "Save Permastructures" button at the bottom of the page.
Reset existing products' permalinks
If you want to make your old URLs follow your new settings, use the "Regenerate/reset" option to regenerate them. Fortunately, it is a simple process. Go to the "Tools -> Permalink Manager -> Tools" section to open the settings panel.
To reset the Product’s permalinks please set:
- “Mode” to: “Regenerate custom permalinks“
- “Select content type” to: “Post types“
- “Select post types” to: “Products“
- “Select post statuses” to “Published“
Reset existing product taxonomies' permalinks
The approach for Product categories is identical to that for Products in the previous step. Please apply the following settings to reset the Product Categories and Product Tags permalinks:
- “Mode” to: “Regenerate custom permalinks“
- “Select content type” to: “Taxonomies“
- “Select post types” to: “Product tags, Product categories“
How to manually edit WooCommerce store permalinks?
If you want to remove /product-category/ from WooCommerce permalinks, using "Permastructures" to bulk update them is more convenient than changing them one by one. Permalink Manager allows you to modify the shop URLs in yet another method.
When you only need to change a few products or product categories, using URI Editor is the simplest and most straightforward option. To open the URI Editor, click the "Permalink Manager" button next to the title input field.
The URI Editor for product categories and tags may be found at the bottom of the form that allows you to make changes to the term.
