by Marcel Pol 4.8 (96 reviews)

Custom Taxonomy Order

Name: Custom Taxonomy Order
Rating: 4.8 (96 reviews)
Author: Marcel Pol

Allows for the ordering of categories and custom taxonomy terms through a simple drag-and-drop interface

Custom Taxonomy Order ranks #765 among WordPress.org plugins with 50,000+ active installations, is #14 of 1,419 in the Taxonomy category, a 4.8/5 rating from 96 reviews, and was last updated Jan 10, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Tested up to WP 6.9.8 (Current: 7.1.1)

v4.0.2 Current Version v4.0.2

Updated 8 months ago Last Update on 10 Jan, 2026

Refreshed 6 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#14 of 1,419 in Taxonomy Top 1% by installs Downloads -6% this week

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Rank

#765

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Active Installs

50K+

-4.8%

KW Avg Position

3.8

— No change

Downloads

736.2K

+46 today

Support Resolved

50%

— No change

Rating

96%

Review 4.8 out of 5

4.8 (96 reviews)

Next Milestone 60K

Total Progress 25.8%

50K+ 60K+

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Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

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Current #765

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

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Reviews & Ratings

4.8

96 reviews

Overall 96%

88 (92%)

3 (3%)

0 (0%)

3 (3%)

2 (2%)

Support Threads Overview

Resolved

Unresolved

Total Threads

Resolved

Unresolved

50%

Resolution Rate

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

No known vulnerabilities on record for Custom Taxonomy Order. Checked 1 week ago.

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Plugin Details

Version: 4.0.2
Last Updated: Jan 10, 2026
Requires WP: 4.1+
Tested Up To: 6.9.8
PHP Version: 7.0 or higher
Author: Marcel Pol

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.8
Reviews: 96
Support Threads: 2
Resolved: 50%

Keywords

category order order taxonomy order term order

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site administrators and content managers who work with categories and custom taxonomy terms. It solves the problem of ordering taxonomy terms, since WordPress has no built-in way to arrange them, by providing a drag-and-drop interface in the Tools menu.

Drag-and-drop term ordering
No custom coding needed
Uses standard WordPress filters
Lightweight, no unnecessary scripts
Located under Tools > Term Order
Translated or translatable
Custom functions to order taxonomies
Compatible with ClassicPress

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Custom Taxonomy Order

If you do need to, you can apply the sorting for the taxonomy by using: 'orderby' => 'term_order'. I use get_term_children but the terms do not get sorted This function only fetches the ID's of the terms, so it is impossible to sort them by term_order. If you do need the sort_order, use a function like get_terms with the 'child_of' parameter. That will fetch an array of WP_Term objects that can be sorted. I have a custom taxonomy that uses the Tag Cloud functionality, but it doesn't sort like it should.

In the customtaxorder_wp_get_object_terms_order_filter it needs to be added, and the get_terms filter should not run on that taxonomy. The tag_cloud_sort filter should do that. If it is a custom taxonomy, you can also use a filter: <?php add_filter( 'customtaxorder_exclude_taxonomies', 'add_taxonomy_to_customtaxorder_exclude_taxonomies' ); function add_taxonomy_to_customtaxorder_exclude_taxonomies( $taxonomies ) { $taxonomies[] = 'directory'; // name of your tag taxonomy. return $taxonomies; } ?> I'm using the_tags function, but it doesn't sort as it should. There is a bug with the the_tags function, where it will sort according to the setting for categories. This happens in the 'customtaxorder_apply_order_filter' function where the $args has two taxonomies but only one orderby can be returned. I use WooCommerce Attributes and Categories. This plugin only supports sorting the attributes/terms. These are the items like S, M and L. For sorting the taxonomies like 'size', you need to sort them on Woo's attributes page. For Products Categories, you can change the order on Product > Categories. There’s a three-line icon next to each category, you can hold it and drag the category up or down to change the order.

For sorting the terms you need the manage_categories capability.

There is an admin page to sort them, and save them in the database. You can use a function to sort taxonomies themselves like this: <?php $taxonomy_objects = get_object_taxonomies( 'post', 'objects' ); $taxonomy_objects = customtaxorder_sort_taxonomies($taxonomy_objects); foreach ( $taxonomy_objects as $tax ) { echo $tax->name . "<br />"; } ?> The function requires a parameter with an array of taxonomy objects.

'customtaxorder_update_order' is being run when saving the order of terms in the admin page. You could add the following example to your functions.php and work from there. <?php function my_customtaxorder_update_order( $new_order ) { print_r( $new_order ); } add_action('customtaxorder_update_order', 'my_customtaxorder_update_order'); ?>

'customtaxorder_terms_ordered' action is being run after term array has been ordered with usort. Please be aware that this can be triggered multiple times during a request. You could add the following example to your functions.php and work from there. <?php function custom_action( $terms_new_order, $terms_old_order ) { print_r( $terms_new_order ); } add_action('customtaxorder_terms_ordered', 'custom_action', 10, 2); ?>

'customtaxorder_settings' filter is being after fetching the settings for all taxonomies. You could add the following example to your functions.php and work from there. <?php /* * Example code to change the product_cat settings in WooCommerce on the main shop page. * * Settings: * 0: orderby Term ID * 1: orderby Custom Order * 2: orderby Term Name (alphabetical) * 3: orderby Term Slug (alphabetical) * 4: orderby Post Count (based on term_taxonomy table) * * Taken from: * https://wordpress.org/support/topic/product-categories-sort-how-to-sort-just-the-sub-terms-sub-categories/ * */ function my_customtaxorder_settings( $settings ) { //var_dump( $settings['product_cat'] ); if ( function_exists( 'is_shop' ) ) { if ( is_shop() ) { $settings['product_cat'] = 1; } } //var_dump( $settings['product_cat'] ); return $settings; } add_filter( 'customtaxorder_settings', 'my_customtaxorder_settings' ); ?> I use the GET parameter 'orderby' to order posts, but then it is ignoring term order In case the GET parameter 'orderby' is set it will be used to order terms, instead of posts, users, or anything else. Therefore when that GET parameter is set, there is no custom order applied in this plugin. You can add a filter to possible ignore the orderby parameter in the GET request. That might be useful if your GET parameter for orderby is used to sort posts, users, or just anything that is not terms. Example code for using the filter: <?php function my_customtaxorder_is_get_orderby_set( $get_orderby_set ) { return false; // ignore orderby GET parameter // return $get_orderby_set; // this would be default behaviour } add_filter( 'customtaxorder_is_get_orderby_set', 'my_customtaxorder_is_get_orderby_set' ); ?>

Translations can be added very easily through GlotPress. You can start translating strings there for your locale. They need to be validated though, so if there's no validator yet, and you want to apply for being validator, please post it on the support forum. I will make a request on make/polyglots to have you added as validator for this plugin/locale.