Category mapping
Category mapping is a saved table that pairs each category in one tree, such as a supplier’s, with the matching category in another, such as yours.
- Category map
- Taxonomy mapping
What it means
Category mapping translates between category trees. The usual one runs from a supplier’s category paths to your own tree, and you decide it once per path rather than once per product. One decision then covers every product under that path, in this file and in every file after it.
Some paths cannot be mapped in one move. A path that mixes different things says nothing true of every product under it, and a blank or catch-all path says nothing at all. Products under those are filed one at a time.
The same idea runs outwards, from your tree to each channel’s. Shopify publishes rules of its own for converting categories in its taxonomy into Google’s.1
Think of it like this
It works like the seating plan at a wedding. Each guest’s table is decided once and written down, so everyone who arrives is shown straight to their seat, and only a guest missing from the plan needs a decision on the night.
For example
In an appliance supplier’s file, Appliances > Fridge Freezers maps once, for the whole path, to Kitchen > Refrigeration > Fridge freezers. White goods holds fridges, washing machines and dishwashers, so it cannot be mapped that way. Each product under it is filed on its own, from its name and specifications.
Why it matters
A mapping turns thousands of small decisions into a list you can finish, and it is worth keeping: the supplier’s next file maps itself, apart from whatever is new. Check a few products under every mapped path, though, because a wrong mapping is wrong for every product under it.
Not to be confused with
Category mapping is separate from column mapping. Column mapping matches a supplier’s headers to your fields. Category mapping matches the values in one of those fields, the category, to your tree.
Sources
- Shopify on GitHub. Integrations (product-taxonomy repository).