When we talk about taxonomy in relation to WooCommerce, what we’re referring to is how you classify and organize your products so that shoppers can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.

There are three types of taxonomy used in WooCommerce:

• categories,
• tags, and
• attributes.

Categories are the broadest product classifications, followed by tags, and finally attributes, which are the most specific methods of organizing items. Using all three taxonomies allows shoppers to sort through and filter items broadly, then very specifically, depending on what they want to find.

For example, you might have a category named “shirts.” All of your shirts, regardless of their cut, sleeve length, fit, size, and so on fall under this broad classification.

To start filtering down the selection, a shopper could look at your tags. All shirts with short sleeves might share a tag of “short sleeved shirts.” Clicking on this tag would only show — you guessed it — shirts with short sleeves.

Finally, a shopper could then use attributes, which are typically specific product aspects like color, size, fit, and so on to only review the specific items they want. So your shopper could click “red” and look only at red short-sleeved shirts.