Isn’t it just so frustrating when you go to create a new category or update one and you get a message saying “Category not updated.”

Initially it was put down to a bug within WordPress 2.5 but, I can assure you it isn’t.  If you receive the “Category not updated” error message, you’ll want to check out these simple fixes:

1. Ensure you don’t have a blog post or page with the same title slug as the category you’re trying to create
2. Check that you don’t already have a post tag assigned to a post with the same named slug

For those of you who may not know what a slug is, in a post or page, it’s called a permalink but in simple terms, it’s the link to the post, page, category or tag and looks something like this …. www.yourdomain.com/this-is-the-slug … and yes, the slug has dashes in the link.

To check whether you have a post tag with the same name, go to Posts and then Post Tags.  There you will see all of the post tags you’ve used within your blog posts.  If you find you have a duplicate name, now is the time to choose.  Is it more important to use the name for the tag, category or blog post title.

Interestingly, if you create the category before you create a tag with the same slug, WordPress will allow it.  The issue is if you try to create the category later on or, modify an existing category.

Sure hope this helps someone.  If I get enough “confused” readers, I may do a video explaining the reasons you might get a “category not updated” error message, since I feel your pain!

No related posts.