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Category and Tag SEO (Term Meta)

SEOvault AI adds SEO fields to all public taxonomies—categories, tags, and custom taxonomies like product categories. You can set custom titles, descriptions, canonical URLs, robots directives, and social sharing tags for each term archive page.

Where to find it

Section titled “Where to find it”

Edit any category, tag, or taxonomy term. The SEOvault AI section appears at the bottom of the form with fields for SEO and social metadata.

Supported taxonomies

Section titled “Supported taxonomies”

SEO fields appear on all public taxonomies by default:

  • Categories (category)
  • Tags (post_tag)
  • Custom taxonomies (e.g., WooCommerce product categories, portfolio categories)

To exclude specific taxonomies from SEO fields, use the seovaultseo_excluded_taxonomies filter in your theme or a custom plugin.

Available fields

Section titled “Available fields”

SEO Title

Section titled “SEO Title”

Custom title for the term archive page. Leave empty to use the term name with your site name appended.

Best practices:

  • Keep under 60 characters for optimal search display
  • Include the category name and relevant keywords
  • Add your brand name at the end: Coffee Equipment | Joe's Coffee Shop

SEO Description

Section titled “SEO Description”

Custom meta description for the term archive. Leave empty to use the term’s description field (if filled in WordPress).

Best practices:

  • Keep between 150-160 characters
  • Describe what visitors will find on this archive page
  • Include a call-to-action when appropriate

Canonical URL

Section titled “Canonical URL”

Custom canonical URL for the term archive. Leave empty to use the term’s archive URL.

When to use:

  • You have parameterized URLs (e.g., ?sort=price) that should canonicalize to the clean version
  • You migrated categories and want to preserve old URLs
  • You have alternate views of the same taxonomy

Robots Directives

Section titled “Robots Directives”
  • Noindex this term archive: Prevents search engines from indexing this specific category or tag page
  • Nofollow this term archive: Tells search engines not to follow links on this archive page

Use noindex for:

  • Thin or duplicate content categories
  • Internal utility categories not meant for public discovery
  • Filtered views that don’t add unique value

Social Tags (Open Graph and Twitter/X)

Section titled “Social Tags (Open Graph and Twitter/X)”
  • OG Title: Custom title for social sharing cards. Falls back to SEO title if empty
  • OG Description: Custom description for social sharing. Falls back to SEO description if empty
  • OG Image URL: Custom image for social sharing. Falls back to default social image if empty

These ensure your category and tag pages display correctly when shared on Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and other platforms.

How term meta outputs on the frontend

Section titled “How term meta outputs on the frontend”

SEOvault AI uses your term meta in the following order:

  1. Custom term meta: If you set a custom value, it’s used
  2. WordPress defaults: If custom meta is empty, WordPress defaults apply (term name, term description, archive URL)
  3. Manual mode: In Manual output mode, no auto-generation occurs if fields are empty

Title fallback chain

Section titled “Title fallback chain”
Custom term SEO title → Term name + site name (auto-generated)

Description fallback chain

Section titled “Description fallback chain”
Custom term SEO description → Term description field → Empty

Canonical fallback chain

Section titled “Canonical fallback chain”
Custom canonical URL → Term archive URL

Social tag fallback chain

Section titled “Social tag fallback chain”
Custom OG title → Custom SEO title → Term name + site name
Custom OG description → Custom SEO description → Term description → Empty
Custom OG image → Default social image → Site logo → Site icon → Empty

Robots directives for term archives

Section titled “Robots directives for term archives”

Term-level robots directives integrate with the layered decision engine:

  • Per-term override: If you set noindex/nofollow on a term, those directives apply
  • Post format archives: The global post format noindex setting (in Schema) applies to post format taxonomies
  • Empty archives: The global empty archives noindex setting applies to categories/tags with no posts

Per-term settings take precedence over global rules.

How to set term SEO

Section titled “How to set term SEO”
  1. Go to Posts > Categories or Posts > Tags (or your custom taxonomy)
  2. Click Edit on an existing term, or add a new term
  3. Scroll to the SEOvault AI section
  4. Fill in the desired fields
  5. Click Update or Add

Character counters show ideal length ranges for title and description fields.

Importing from other SEO plugins

Section titled “Importing from other SEO plugins”

If you migrate from Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO, or another SEO plugin, SEOvault AI imports your term SEO data automatically. This includes:

  • SEO titles and descriptions
  • Canonical URLs
  • Noindex/nofollow settings
  • Open Graph metadata

Your existing term SEO is preserved without manual re-entry.

Notes and edge cases

Section titled “Notes and edge cases”
  • Disabled mode: When SEOvault AI is disabled, term SEO fields show a notice that output is turned off
  • Private taxonomies: SEO fields only appear on public taxonomies. Private taxonomies are excluded automatically
  • Multilingual sites: Term SEO is per-language if you use a multilingual plugin like WPML or Polylang
  • Verification: View a category or tag archive page source to confirm your custom title, description, and canonical are outputting correctly
  • Bulk editing: Use the term list quick edit to update basic term info, but full SEO settings require the edit screen
Section titled “Related docs”