How to Remove /categories/ from Wix Blog URLs and Nest Articles Under Categories?

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1

We’re using Wix Studio, Wix Blog App, and Wix Site Search App to set up our blog, ‘Insights’, and want to optimize our URL structure for better SEO and usability.

How can we remove /categories/ from Level 2 category URLs and ensure articles are nested under their respective categories?

Current Blog Structure & Issues

Level 1: Insights Hub (Main Page)
:small_blue_diamond: URL: https://www.domain.com/insights
:small_blue_diamond: Issue: No problem, serves as the hub for articles.

Level 2: Category Pages (Clusters)
:small_blue_diamond: Current URL: https://www.domain.com/insights/categories/industry-best-practices-category
:small_blue_diamond: Issue: The /categories/ folder is unnecessary and does not change between categories.

Level 3: Individual Articles
:small_blue_diamond: Current URL: https://www.domain.com/articles-aimed-at-building-topical-authority
:small_blue_diamond: Issue: Articles do not include their category in the URL, making them disconnected from topic clusters.

What We Want to Achieve

:white_check_mark: Remove /categories/ from category page URLs
:white_check_mark: Nest articles under their respective categories

Desired URL structure:
:heavy_check_mark: Categories: https://www.domain.com/insights/industry-best-practices-category/
:heavy_check_mark: Articles: https://www.domain.com/insights/industry-best-practices-category/articles-aimed-at-building-topical-authority/

Current Wix-generated structure (not ideal):
:x: Categories: https://www.domain.com/insights/categories/industry-best-practices-category/
:x: Articles: https://www.domain.com/articles-aimed-at-building-topical-authority/

What We’ve Tried

We’ve explored Wix Studio and Wix Blog App settings but cannot find a way to:
:one: Remove /categories/ from category URLs.
:two: Nest articles under their respective categories.

Questions:

:one: Can we remove /categories/ from Level 2 category page URLs?
:two: How can we ensure articles are nested under categories in the URL?
:three: If Wix Studio doesn’t support this natively, are there workarounds (e.g., manual slugs, redirects, custom routing)?

Any insights from those who have solved this in Wix Studio would be greatly appreciated! :rocket:

2

I also need this feature - seems pretty basic? Is there a way to rename “categories” instead? I’m hoping that could be a good workaround.

3

I am still looking at possible workarounds (e.g., manual updates to individual article URLs, 301 redirects while keeping navigation intact, etc.) but have not found a solution.

Still looking. Hoping someone here can offer a suggestion.

4

Have spent so long on this too - a nightmare!

5

I think you could use the cms for what you need user 3330 with the rich text field for your content. You’d need to name the collection insights.

I need a structure for posts for seo reasons that is /blog/news/post-url but can’t figure out if i can use the cms like this. so frustrating!

6

I’ve figured it out - you need to create a category field in the cms (use ai to create the fields you need) and then you can add the category as a variable in front of the item url (you can create a separate url field for this also - I used a text field as wix expects full urls for the url field). You can’t do this in the blog - only the cms - but with the rich content field, you can achieve the same things visually as with the blog. You lose the ai blog writing function but could just use the tool for that as and when needed. Hope this helps someone - took me soooo long to figure out!

7

Thank you for the suggestion. Glad to hear you got something working. I followed your suggestion of using the CMS, and while I did have some success and make forward progress, I have not been able to implement my desired (and SEO best practice) URL structure of:
:one: Level 1 SLUG: /insights
:two: Level 2 SLUG: /insights/category_name-aka-content_pillar
:three: Level 3 SLUG: /insights/category_name-aka-content_pillar/individual_article_in_that_category_or_content_pillar

Like you, I’ve wasted many hours on this but ultimately, I have confirmed that you can NOT set up a URL structure where all content is nested. This is not only my desired URL structure, but it’s SEO best practice. :-1:

Forthe benefit of others who might want to try something similar, here is what I did:
I setup the Wix CMS and setup TWO datasets:
1). Insights which contains the actual blog articles
2). Insight_Categories which contains the list of categories that the blog articles will sit under. The areas of topical authority for SEO.

I setup three pages in Wix. Two dynamic, one static. All linked to the CMS and the datasets mentioned above.
:one: Level 1 **Level 1 : Insights Hub (Main Page).
SLUG: /insights
i.e. the full URL in this case would be: https://www.domain.com/insights
How I did this: I set up this as a static page with a repeater linked to Insight_Categories. This gives me a single landing page or home page for my ‘blog’ with a list of categories.
:check_mark: No problem; it serves as the hub for articles. SLUG is fine. Links to the next level pages. All works ok.

:two: Level 2 : Category Pages (Clusters). a.k.a. SEO content “Pillar Pages”
Desired SLUG: /insights/category_name-aka-content_pillar
How I did this: I set this up as a dynamic page linked to Insight_Categories. This gives me a page for each category.
I was able to use a ‘category’ field in the Insight_Categories database to generate the SLUG
When I add new categories into the Insight_Categories database in the Wix CMS, it gives me a new page auto-magically!
:cross_mark: Issue: /insights/ is already in use in the Level 1 page, so I can NOT use it in the SLUG.

:three: Level 3 : Individual Articles
Desired SLUG: /insights/category_name-aka-content_pillar/individual_article_in_that_category_or_content_pillar
How I did this: I set this up as a dynamic page linked to Insights. This gives me a page for each article. When I add new articles into the Insights database in the Wix CMS, it gives me a new page auto-magically!
:cross_mark: Issue: /insights/ is already in use in the Level 1 page so I can NOT use it.

So you can set up the following URL structure, with the two dynamic pages nested:
:one: Level 1 Level 1 SLUG: /insights
:two: Level 2 SLUG: /XYZ/category_name-aka-content_pillar
:three: Level 3 SLUG:/XYZ/category_name-aka-content_pillar/individual_article_in_that_category_or_content_pillar
but :cross_mark: you can NOT nest all pages under the one, consistent URL structure.
I have tried this in both Wix Classic and Wix Studio websites, and both have the same limitation.