Remove taxonomy slugs (categories, post tags and custom taxonomies) from URL

In this post I will show you how to remove «category» from WordPress categories URL,

How to remove category slug from URLs

how to remove «tag» from post tags URLs,

How to remove tag from post_tags URLs.

and how to remove custom taxonomy slugs («product_cat») from term URLs:

Remove taxonomy slug from term URL.

Here is the main part of thе code, you can insert it into your current theme functions.php, just do not forget to change taxonomy names/slugs in each function to your own values.

add_filter('request', 'rudr_change_term_request', 1, 1 );

function rudr_change_term_request($query){
	
	$tax_name = 'product_cat'; // specify you taxonomy name here, it can be also 'category' or 'post_tag'
	
	// Request for child terms differs, we should make an additional check
	if( $query['attachment'] ) :
		$include_children = true;
		$name = $query['attachment'];
	else:
		$include_children = false;
		$name = $query['name'];
	endif;
	
	
	$term = get_term_by('slug', $name, $tax_name); // get the current term to make sure it exists
	
	if (isset($name) && $term && !is_wp_error($term)): // check it here
		
		if( $include_children ) {
			unset($query['attachment']);
			$parent = $term->parent;
			while( $parent ) {
				$parent_term = get_term( $parent, $tax_name);
				$name = $parent_term->slug . '/' . $name;
				$parent = $parent_term->parent;
			}
		} else {
			unset($query['name']);
		}
		
		switch( $tax_name ):
			case 'category':{
				$query['category_name'] = $name; // for categories
				break;
			}
			case 'post_tag':{
				$query['tag'] = $name; // for post tags
				break;
			}
			default:{
				$query[$tax_name] = $name; // for another taxonomies
				break;
			}
		endswitch;

	endif;
	
	return $query;
	
}


add_filter( 'term_link', 'rudr_term_permalink', 10, 3 );

function rudr_term_permalink( $url, $term, $taxonomy ){
	
	$taxonomy_name = 'product_cat'; // your taxonomy name here
	$taxonomy_slug = 'product_cat'; // the taxonomy slug can be different with the taxonomy name (like 'post_tag' and 'tag' )

	// exit the function if taxonomy slug is not in URL
	if ( strpos($url, $taxonomy_slug) === FALSE || $taxonomy != $taxonomy_name ) return $url;
	
	$url = str_replace('/' . $taxonomy_slug, '', $url);
	
	return $url;
}
 

And do not forget about 301 redirect from old URLs, it is required for your website SEO.

add_action('template_redirect', 'rudr_old_term_redirect');

function rudr_old_term_redirect() {
	
	$taxonomy_name = 'product_cat';
	$taxonomy_slug = 'product_cat';
	
	// exit the redirect function if taxonomy slug is not in URL
	if( strpos( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], $taxonomy_slug ) === FALSE)
		return;

	if( ( is_category() && $taxonomy_name=='category' ) || ( is_tag() && $taxonomy_name=='post_tag' ) || is_tax( $taxonomy_name ) ) :

        	wp_redirect( site_url( str_replace($taxonomy_slug, '', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) ), 301 );
		exit();
		
	endif;

}

The code was tested with different hierarchical and non-hierarchical taxonomies and works great with this permalink settings.

Recomended permalink settings for the code.
Misha Rudrastyh

Misha Rudrastyh

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