Plan a taxonomy

Before creating a taxonomy, analyze how the taxonomy will be used in the site to determine the best structure.

Group categories within taxonomies.

We cannot use taxonomies in menu searches. To have a menu return results based on content profiled with any category in a taxonomy, create a single top-level category and base the menu on the top-level category.

"Metabank" example taxonomy

• Financial
  • Banking Solutions
  • Interest Rates
    • Personal
    • Business
    • Corporate
• News

In this example:

• Taxonomy = MetaBank taxonomy
• "Financial" is the ancestor of "Interest Rates", "Personal", "Business", "Corporate" and "Banking Solutions".
• "Personal", "Business" and "Corporate" are the descendants of "Interest Rates" and "Financial".

Use categories to profile content

When building a hierarchy of taxonomies and categories it is important to consider how a menu will use the categories in a search. This is because menus search both upwards and downwards within groups of categories.

Scenario	Description
If we base a menu on a top-level category, all content profiled with categories belonging to that top-level category and their descendants will appear in the menu.	A menu based on Financial will display content profiled with any of the following: Financial Banking Solutions Interest Rates Personal Business Corporate
If we base a menu on a mid-level category, all content profiled with the mid-level category or its descendants or its ancestors appear in the menu.	A Menu based on Interest Rates. It will display Content profiled with any of the following: Financial Interest Rates Personal. Business. Corporate.
If we base a menu on a bottom-level category, all content profiled with the bottom-level category or its ancestors will be returned by the menu.	A Menu based on Business will display content profiled with any of the following: Financial Interest Rates Business.

Parent: Profiling strategies