Advanced Category Column
The Advanced Category Column is mainly designed to give your blog a bit more of a newspaper behavior. E.g. The plugin shows the latest posts from all categories with an offset of three posts on your homepage.
Consider an alternative
Advanced Category Column shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 20+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (20+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 10 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 4.5 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Advanced Category Column stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| category | >100 |
| column | >100 |
| newspaper | >100 |
| sidebar | >100 |
| widget | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
About Advanced Category Column
From the official readme · v3.5Description
The Advanced Category Column is mainly designed to give your blog a bit more of a newspaper behavior. E.g. The plugin shows the latest posts from all categories with an offset of three posts on your homepage.
If there is a post thumbnail, it will be displayed above the headline of the post. No further text will appear. If there is no thumbnail, only the headline and the excerpt of the post will be shown. When the plugin can detect neither the thumbnail nor the excerpt of a post, it will display just the first couple of sentences (or words) of a post.
So far that is the same as my Category Column Plugin does also. Not every theme has the possibility to hide certain sidebars on different pages. That’s where the advanced of our plugin comes in. In the ACC you can determine, where exactly the widget is showing and in the settings you can customize the links of your widget(s).
Installation
- Upload the
advanced-category-columnfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- Place and customize your widgets
- Customize your links in the settings
Changelog
Stable and clean version
3.5
- Framework adjusted
- WP 4.5 ready
3.4.2
- WP 4.3 ready
3.4.1
- WP 4.2 ready
3.4
- Framework adjusted
3.3
- Framework adjusted
- Made ready for Custom Login Page
- Made rady for WP 4.1
3.2.2
- Mistake in image class fixed
Screenshots
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Advanced Category Column alternatives
All category plugins →
FAQ
Advanced Category Column: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 30, 2026
Is Advanced Category Column free?
Yes. Advanced Category Column is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Advanced Category Column safe to use in 2026?
Advanced Category Column shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 20+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Advanced Category Column?
Advanced Category Column is active on 20+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 16,295 times since it launched in March 2011. It was downloaded 59 times in the last 30 days.
Does Advanced Category Column work with WordPress 7.1?
Advanced Category Column is officially tested up to WordPress 4.5.33, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Advanced Category Column last updated?
The latest version, 3.5, was released on February 26, 2016 (11 years ago).
Who makes Advanced Category Column?
Advanced Category Column is developed and maintained by tepelstreel.
What are the best alternatives to Advanced Category Column?
The most popular alternatives to Advanced Category Column are Pages with category and tag (50K+ installs), Search & Filter (50K+ installs) and Tag, Category, and Taxonomy… (40K+ installs).
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