How to change the category name "Uncategorized" in WordPress

The default "Uncategorized" category in WordPress may seem generic and not representative of your website's content, especially as your site grows and covers more specific topics. You can easily rename this category to "General," "Other," or a name that aligns with your brand and content.

In this article, we will show you how to rename the "Uncategorized" category and how to set a new default category in WordPress to make your website look more professional.

What is the default category in WordPress?

In WordPress, there is a content categorization system called "Categories" and "Tags," which helps you group related articles together.

Every article you create must belong to at least one category. If you do not assign a category yourself, the article will be placed in the default category, which is "Uncategorized." In newer versions of WordPress, you cannot delete the default category unless you set a new default category first.

How to change the category name "Uncategorized"

• Go to Posts >  Categories in the WordPress dashboard
• Hover the mouse over the "Uncategorized" category and click the Edit button.
• On the edit page, change the category name as desired, such as "General" or "Other."
• Change the slug of the category to match the new name, such as general or miscellaneous.
• Click Update to save the changes.

Note: Changing the slug may cause the old links of this category to become unusable. We will show how to set up a redirect later.

How to change the default category in WordPress

If you want to change the default category to another category, you need to create a new category first:

• Go to Posts > Categories
• Click Add New Category
• Name the new category and add a slug as desired, then click Add New Category.

When setting a new category, change the default category:

• Go to Settings > Writing
• In the section "Default Post Category"  Select a new category that you want to use as the default.
• Click Save Changes
• After changing the default category, you can delete the "Uncategorized" category if there are no posts assigned to it.

How to set up the old Redirect URL for the "Uncategorized" category

If your website is online and the category slug has been changed, it may cause a 404 error for old links.  The solution is to set up a redirect:

• Install and activate the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin.
• Go to All in One SEO > Redirects and click Activate Redirects.
• In the "Source URL" field, type /category/uncategorized
• Click the gear icon and select Regex.
• In the "Target URL" field, type the URL of the new category, such as /category/general.
• Select the redirect type as 301 Moved Permanently.
• Click Add Redirect

That's it! Users and search engines accessing the old URL of the "Uncategorized" category will be automatically redirected to the new category.

Changing the category name from "Uncategorized" and setting a new default category is easy and makes your website look much more professional.  If there are old links that might be accessed externally, it is recommended to set up redirects to prevent 404 errors and maintain a good user experience.

Try using these methods, and your website will definitely be more organized and look better.