I hope I’m not the only one that this bothers, but I really hate it when I add a category on a WordPress blog and the URL turns into something like /category-2/.
Why Does WordPress Add the -2?
Your tags, categories, pages and posts all have a slug that’s defined in a single table where you can’t have any duplicates between the three areas. What typically happens is that you have a page, post or tag that has the slug so you’re unable to use it as a category slug. Instead of telling you that, WordPress simply numbers the slug with the -2. If you did it again, it would add -3, and so on. Slugs must be unique throughout the entire content management system.
Here’s a screenshot of the issue with one of our clients.
How Do I Fix the -2?
First, you’ll need to search pages, posts, and tags for the slug name you want to have. Once you find it, you’ll need to edit that page, post and/or tag to come up with a different slug. More often than not, we see it as a tag and remove the tag from each of the posts. To do this:
- Type the slug name that we’re looking for in the search field on the tag page.
- A list of posts that the tag was used in is now listed.
- The quantity of posts that the tag is used in is indicated to the right of the tag.
- Click on that quantity and you’ll get a list of the each of the posts that the tag is used in.
- Click Quickedit on each post, remove the tag, and save the post.
- Return to the tag page, search for the tag, and you should see that the tag is listed in 0 posts.
- If it’s 0, delete the tag.
- Now that the tag is deleted, you can update the category slug and remove the -2.
You’re not done yet!
Since your site’s category pages may have been indexed in search results, you’ll want to redirect the old URL with the -2 to the new URL without it.
