Link to and from your category and tag pages
A category page is a list of excerpts until you write an introduction for it. Then it is a page a reader can land on: what the topic covers, and every post in it. Silotree treats those pages like posts. It suggests links to them, on their name, and can write links into the introduction itself.
Steps
Write an introduction for the category or tag
In WordPress open Posts → Categories (or Tags), edit the category and fill in Description. Twenty words is the least that counts: say what the topic covers and where a new reader should start. Most themes show it at the top of the category page.
A tag needs three posts or more, and a category two. A category or tag with a one-line description, or none, stays a plain list of posts and is never suggested as a link, unless you chose it as a topic’s main guide.
Run a scan
The next scan reads each category and tag from WordPress: its name, its description and how many posts it holds. Page two onwards of an archive is never counted.
Approve the links in Links → To add
Links to a category page wait in Links → To add like any other. The card names the page, such as Succulents category, and says why it may be linked. A link to one always uses its whole name. From a post filed under the category, the name may appear in any form; from any other post, only where the sentence writes it as a name, capitalised mid-sentence or as an acronym. A category whose name is already one of your post titles gets no links: those words go to the post.
Links that go into a description are marked on their card: the link goes in the introduction of your category page, not in a post.
Undo them like any other batch
Approve and write them as usual. A batch that wrote into a description is undone from Links → Written like any other, and the description goes back to what it was.
What you should see
Your category and tag pages with an introduction get links from the posts that talk about them, and their introductions can point readers at the right posts. Everything else about your archives stays as it was.
If it doesn’t work
- No category pages appear in Links → To add
Check the description has twenty words or more and the tag has three posts. If your host switches off WordPress’s REST API, open Silotree → Reports in WordPress and press Match posts to your scan: the plugin sends the categories and tags, and the next scan uses them.
- A link into a description was not written
Writing into descriptions needs the Silotree plugin 0.8.2 or later. Update the plugin and press Write again. If it still refuses, the card shows why, as for a post: see a link didn’t land.
Questions
Which category and tag pages can be linked to?
One whose description has at least 20 words, or one you chose as a topic's main guide. A tag also needs three posts or more, and a category two. Page two onwards of any archive is never linked to.
Which words does a link to one use?
Its name, all of it: “succulents” for Succulents, “index funds” for Index Funds, never half of a longer name. From a post filed under it, the name may appear in any form. From any other post, only where the sentence writes it as a name: capitalised mid-sentence, or as an acronym (on German posts, where every noun is capitalised, only from posts filed under it). And never when one of your posts already has that name as its title: the post is where those words go.
Can Silotree write into the description itself?
Yes, with the Silotree plugin 0.8.2 or later connected. The description is checked, written and read back the way a post is, with the same six-link limit and never-link list, and the batch can be undone. Older plugins are not sent these links.
Where does Silotree get the description from?
From WordPress itself, through its public REST API, during the scan. When that API is switched off, the plugin sends the same details when you press Match posts to your scan.