Taxonomies, Terms, and their URL and Page Content

#53100
  • Resolved Support

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Rank Math business
    Content AI Expert

    I’m trying to better understand custom taxonomies and terms, and what content they produce on a webpage.

    1) How do you tell if a webpage is that of a custom taxonomy or a (custom) post type? For example, in https://rankmath.com/compatibility/, “compatibility” appears to be a taxonomy that acts as an archive page for compatible products. But it could also simply just be a Page post type acting as an archive page. How can I tell what post type/taxonomy the page actually is?

    2) Are all custom taxonomy pages archive pages, or can they hold non-archive content? For example, in https://rankmath.com/kb/, “kb” appears to be a taxonomy, but the contents of this page is that of a search page, not an archive page.

    3) Why do some taxonomy pages return a 404 error, even though their subdirectory holds data? For example, https://rankmath.com/wordpress/plugin/seo-suite/ is a valid page, however, move up one directory level to https://rankmath.com/wordpress/plugin and you get a 404 error.

    4) Why do some taxonomy pages redirect to a subdirectory page? For example, https://rankmath.com/wordpress/ redirects to https://rankmath.com/wordpress/plugins/.

    Where applicable, could you also include the SEO-best-practices approach to each case?

    This is all very confusing to me, and perhaps to other members as well, so I would find an explanation to these very informative.

    Thanks!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Alberto

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Rank Math business

    Hello,

    Thank you for contacting Rank Math today.

    Let’s go step by step:

    1. You can’t, except checking in the WordPress Dashboard.

    2. A custom taxonomy page can contain whatever you (or the plugin) is coded to display.

    3. Because some URLs are not taxonomies but just paths. So they don’t have content but their child can have content.

    4. Just for the same reason I explained in the 3rd point. Since that path has no content, we redirect that URL to one of its children with content, for SEO purposes.

    Looking forward to help you.

    Looking forward to helping you. Thank you.

    ​​​​​​

    Support

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Rank Math business
    Content AI Expert

    Thanks Alberto,

    I understand everything except this: “some URLs are not taxonomies but just paths” I did not know this to be possible. How can a valid URL not hold any content?

    Thanks!

    Alberto

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Rank Math business

    Hello,

    Well, originally URLs were just folders. So imagine your website is bringing the content from a folder called “mywebsite”.

    When a user type in the browser “mywebsite.com”, your host loads the content in the folder “mywebsite” and sends it to the user.

    So if you tried to go to “mywebsite.com/test”, the server would try to find inside the folder “mywebsite” a folder called “test” and send its content.

    You could have a URL like “mywebsite.com/test/test2/mypage.php” and then the server would load the folder mywebsite.com, open the folder test, open the folder test2 and send the file mypage.php.

    You wouldn’t need to have any content in the folder “test”, just the folder “test2”.

    Now, in WordPress you don’t have those folders created “physically” but they are created virtually, in the WordPress core. So when a user try to go to “mypage”, WordPress checks if “test” exists”. If it is, it checks if “test2” exists and it is inside (virtually) of “test” and if it is, WordPress generates the “mypage” content and sends it to the user. There, “mypage” and “test2” could be taxonomies and “test” just part of the path, but without content.

    I hope it helps.

    Support

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Rank Math business
    Content AI Expert

    Thanks Alberto, will now close this ticket.

    Todd

    3 years, 11 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Hello,

    We are super happy that this resolved your issue. If you have any other questions in the future, know that we are here to help you.

    If you don’t mind me asking, could you please leave us a review (if you haven’t already) on https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seo-by-rank-math/reviews/#new-post about your overall experience with Rank Math? We appreciate your time and patience.

    If you do have another question in the future, please feel free to create a new forum topic, and it will be our pleasure to assist you again.

    Thank you.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The ticket ‘Taxonomies, Terms, and their URL and Page Content’ is closed to new replies.