Category tree
A category tree is a shop’s categories arranged in levels, where each category sits inside one broader parent and can hold narrower ones.
- Category hierarchy
What it means
A category tree is the shape a taxonomy takes. A few broad categories sit at the top. Each splits into narrower ones, which split again, until a category is specific enough to hold products. WooCommerce describes its categories this way: they have “parent > children relationships”, and each subcategory “can only have one parent”.1
On a shop’s website the tree is usually the menu. The top level is what a shopper sees first, and each click goes a level down. Channels keep trees of their own: each eBay marketplace uses a default category tree, and eBay warns that its categories can be “added, expanded, consolidated, or removed”.2
Suppliers send trees too, built around their own price lists and warehouses. A supplier’s tree is evidence about a product, never a replacement for yours.
Think of it like this
A category tree works like the folders on a computer. Each folder sits inside one other folder, and files belong in the most specific folder that fits them, not loose at the top.
For example
A kitchen shop’s tree might start with Kitchen, split it into Cookware and Appliances, then split Cookware into Frying pans and Saucepans. A 28 cm frying pan then sits at Kitchen > Cookware > Frying pans, which is also how WooCommerce’s importer wants the path written, with > between the levels.3
Why it matters
A product on the wrong branch is invisible to the shopper browsing the right one. A product on no branch does no better: WooCommerce files it in a default category, named “Uncategorized” unless someone has renamed it or chosen another.1
Not to be confused with
The category tree is the whole structure. A category path is one route through it, from the top level down to a single category, such as Kitchen > Cookware > Frying pans.
Sources
- WooCommerce documentation. Managing Product Categories, Tags and Attributes.
- eBay Developers Program. Finding categories for a listing.
- WooCommerce documentation. Product CSV Importer and Exporter.