Decategorizer
Go to http://skyphe.org/code/wordpress/decategorizer/ for the explanation, thanks!
Consider an alternative
Decategorizer shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 17 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 17 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 2.8 (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 Decategorizer stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| category | >100 |
| category base | >100 |
| category_base | #5 |
| remove | >100 |
| remove category | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
About Decategorizer
From the official readme · v0.7.1.2Description
THIS PLUGIN IS NOW OBSOLETE,PLEASE SWITCH TO
‘WP NO CATEGORY BASE’
PLUGIN
Go to http://skyphe.org/code/wordpress/decategorizer/ for the
explanation, thanks!
“Decategorizer” will remove the category base from your category
links, and turn your category URLs from something like
“http://yourdomain/category/news/” to “http://yourdomain/news/”.
Features:
301 redirection for old category links added automatically;
works with most permalink structures (please e-mail me or leave
a comment on plugin’s site if it doesn’t work for you);
you can safely use variables in your category URLs
(http://yourdomain/news/?var=val);
sitemap plugins compatible;
it works with multiple subcategory links
(http://yourdomain/categoryname/subcategoryname/subsubcategoryname/)
“Decategorizer” needs John Godley’s
‘Redirection’
plugin to work and it will disable itself if Redirection is
not installed.
Redirection version 2.x. is recommended (Last tested with v2.1.9)
More info
To see the end result before you decide to install, please
visit wordpress.skyphe.org and
browse around. You’ll notice that no url contains “category” and still
everything works just fine.
I don’t think I’ve ever written a readme before. Is it full of
spelling and grammar errors? Too long? I suck at explaining how things
work? Drop me an e-mail if something’s bugging you about this text 🙂
Plans for the next version?
(modified on February 10th 2009 at 11:36PM)
Make it a “Redirection” extending class – does that make any sense?
Probably.
Or maybe move from “Redirection” completely and just write the values
to the .htaccess file?
Leave a comment here (WordPress forums) or on my site, or send me an
e-mail if you would like to see something added to the plugin.
Thanks for reading this 🙂
Installation
- Place the whole ‘decategorizer’ folder into your wordpress’
installation folder, under ‘wp-content\plugins’. - Go to WordPress administration->plugins page and make sure that
the plugin’s name (Decategorizer) is on the list, but do not
activate it just yet. - Install Urban Giraffe’s Redirection plugin the same way,
if you haven’t already done so. - Activate ‘Redirection’ plugin.
- If you haven’t had Redirection installed and used before now,
go to Redirection plugin’s options page so its database tables
can be created. - Go back to the plugin management page and activate Decategorizer.
- You’re done.
Changelog
0.7.1.1
- june 2nd 2009
- small bugfix for subfolder installations
0.7.1
- may 30th 2009
- additional options on the permalink settings page in admin.
- now you can create a list of paths which will be ignored by the
paging redirection (thanks Travis!) => WORDPRESS 2.7 AND UP ONLY
0.6.3
- may 17th 2009
- fixed a bug with 301 redirections not respecting the user added
text string at the beginning of permalink structure
0.6.2.3
- may 17th 2009
- minor code corrections
- informational messages are no longer echoed, but saved to a log file
to prevent headers already sent errors on add/edit post/category
0.6.2
- may 14th 2009
- i might have broken a few sites with that 0.6 version, so i’ll
just apologize preemptively – sorry! 😐 - version 0.6.2 is what version 0.6 was supposed to be
- big thanks goes to westi for explaining the event sequence of
“update_option_permalink_structure” hook
0.6
- may 11th 2009
- fixed a bunch of bugs
- plugin now correctly updates the redirections when permalink
structure is updated, or deletes them when structure is empty - plugin now deletes the data it has created when it is deactivated
- added support for custom strings in permalink structures,
for example /articles/%postname%.html (thanks Dominic!). - i’ll be releasing another update soon – you’ll be able to
choose whether you want the trailing slash or not in your
permalinks, and also some other yum things.
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 Decategorizer alternatives
All category plugins →
FAQ
Decategorizer: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 27, 2026
Is Decategorizer free?
Yes. Decategorizer is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Decategorizer safe to use in 2026?
Decategorizer shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 17 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Decategorizer?
Decategorizer is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 12,007 times since it launched in July 2008. It was downloaded 33 times in the last 30 days.
Does Decategorizer work with WordPress 7.1?
Decategorizer is officially tested up to WordPress 2.8, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Decategorizer last updated?
The latest version, 0.7.1.2, was released on June 26, 2009 (17 years ago).
Who makes Decategorizer?
Decategorizer is developed and maintained by Aesqe.
What are the best alternatives to Decategorizer?
The most popular alternatives to Decategorizer are Pages with category and tag (50K+ installs), Search & Filter (50K+ installs) and Tag, Category, and Taxonomy… (40K+ installs).
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