Comments on: How Many Categories Does Your Blog Have?

By: Eren

Eren — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:34:24 +0000

Hi there,
Well I believe the ideal is to have main categories and you can make several sub-categories under each main one if there is too much content.
When you start out your blog you may not have many sub-categories but as time moves on there may be a need to create subcategories to organize things better.
I would say don’t go over 10 main categories. Even if that means bunching a few of your categories into a more broad one.
Studies have shown that the most categories that one looks at is 7 so going 3 overboard would be my limit.
I do think that the page that the main categories are though should be optimized for the keyword phrase related to it.
Right now i am mapping out my site so i have been trying to bunch the categories together so that things are easier to find.
The advice of not creating an entire category for a topic that has a little amount of content is great:-)
For that we need to think ahead before creating the site or blog-site as to what will we be writing most about.
Many people don’t analyze before they build and then get into a disorganized mess when the site is made.
This is why I have taken quite some time studying and analyzing before i actually build- so I don’t regret my categories- and decisions later on.
Blessings,
Eren

By: moonburst

moonburst — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:56:32 +0000

At present I have 5, I will be adding another 5 in the upcoming weeks. They are general subjects but will be refined in the upcoming weeks as to what categories articles are supposed to fall under. 60 categories? Wow, maybe that’s a little bit too much.

@ Mr. Abid, I have a tutorial on my blog that shows you how to do just that and is made for new bloggers!

By: Abid

Abid — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 07:01:05 +0000

Could somebody tell me how to put a category on my blog? I use Blogger.com, i am new to blogging, any help appreciated.

Thank you!

By: Steupz

Steupz — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:39:53 +0000

nearly 200

By: Frucomerci

Frucomerci — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:08:45 +0000

I have just started my blog but I have already 10!
I think are enough! I don’t want to have more,
Regards

By: Brian Carnell

Brian Carnell — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:14:45 +0000

At last count, 400 or so on my personal blog. I have another blog that has well over 1,000 categories.

By: Matt Wardman

Matt Wardman — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:05:00 +0000

I’ve had a more detailed look at categories on my blog.

And now I feel a cull coming on …

Matt

By: I feel a Categroy Cull coming on

I feel a Categroy Cull coming on — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:43:48 +0000

[...] There was a conversation last week on ProBlogger about the appropriate number of categories. The 92 responses gave figures ranging from 6 to more than 100 and explored the rationale for this decision, which was for a blog where posts were categorised by location. [...]

By: Mark Boudreau

Mark Boudreau — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:21:55 +0000

I had about 27 originally but in the process of my current redesign of the site I am narrowing it down to 7. I think the less the better. Readers can always use the site search to find something more specific.

By: Mary-Ann

Mary-Ann — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 22:26:48 +0000

I have a motorsport blog and I just have “news”, “photos”, “videos” because I did have lots of different categories and it just got out of hand. Should I categorise by region? By championship? Type of post? All of the above?

So I ended up deleting them all and using tags (UTW) to define posts more specifically.

By: francesco mapelli

francesco mapelli — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:02:44 +0000

something like 60.

But I don’t think that my blog is the one you were reading :)

Maybe they’re too much, but I display them as a nice category cloud (I wrote the plugin for wordpress 2.1 by myself…) and I find them nice and usable… should I drop the ones I use less? or should I hide them from my category cloud?

By: Jeffrey Kishner

Jeffrey Kishner — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:57:49 +0000

I write an astrology blog, so I display the twelve categories of all the zodiac signs at the top. This helps readers navigate to the topic they’re interested in. I also tag all posts ‘astrology’ for Technorati.

By: Volkan Özçelik

Volkan Özçelik — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:10:49 +0000

Well I have **cough** 47 categories.

The question “but why so many?” has an interesting reason.
I will try to explain if you bear with me.

I have a social tagging start-up and I try to use tags more than usual in order to get some inspiration and understanding on the mental process of tagging. I have read dozens of articles on folksonomy and taxonomy but I believe you cannot truely grasp a concept until you learn to live with it.

So I begin to live inside a tag-based world. I tag my scribbles, I tag notes that I jot down to a sheet of paper, I tag my calendar events,
I even use a tag-based file system instead of using folders like everyone else.

And I massively tag my blog entries.

When I write a blog post. I attach as much tags (categories) to it as I can without even thinking a similar tag (category) exists.

This results in several major categories (tags) with more than 10 posts and minor categories with one or two posts.

Currently my blog is in a state between chaos and order — getting closer to an “ordered” state at each blog post I write.
(or to rephrase my blog seems chaotic from outside, but there is an order in that chaos :) )

Best.

By: Peter Andersen

Peter Andersen — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:05:24 +0000

I actually give this a lot of thought before posting.

At the moment I have 7 categories. I really do prefer to keep the number low, but who knows, the number will most likely grow slightly. Must say though, as others have said : “Less is more.”

Regards

By: i8pikachu

i8pikachu — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 07:04:01 +0000

I use categories sort of like tags. Amazon uses them too but calls them “nodes”. The key is not to look at categories as a way to list everything but as a system to help organize your content on a larger level. You don’t have to actually display a link to every category but often you’ll find that it comes in handy when you want to direct someone to all your articles related to “Madagascar primates”.

By: jamjammo

jamjammo — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:52:28 +0000

I have 6 main categories with no more than 15 subs.
I run a magazine styled site.

By: LamaZone

LamaZone — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:36:52 +0000

about 60 actually, but, as mentioned above, that is due to the fact that this version of WP does not allow me to use tags.
it works for me.

By: Rob O.

Rob O. — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:19:23 +0000

I was anxiously awaiting the Blogger labels and have nearly 30 labels on 2Dolphins now. And sure enough, when I began adding labels, I searched (in vain) all over to try to find some kind of guide. I ended up just winging it. I was mostly interested in having these for the sake of navigation and/or categorization because our posts are scattered across a diverse range of topics. I wonder what, if any, role the Blogger labels play in the SEO value of our pages... Do these make any difference at all with regards to how Google et al view our site?

By: Jacob Share

Jacob Share — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:49:20 +0000

10. I didn’t want the list to get out of hand, so I kept the names general enough that I should always be covered. Ask me how many tags…that’s a whole different story :)

By: David Villarreal

David Villarreal — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:46:11 +0000

i have hundreds of categories

i use it like tags, and i limit the tags that WordPress show in sidebar