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Organizing Content with Categories and Tags

Categories and Tags are two essential tools for helping users find content through search or navigation.

Using Categories, you can group similar assets and organize your content. For example, you can create a Success Stories Category and group all customer success articles website under this Category. You can also create a hierarchy of Categories. For example, the Success Stories categories can have Finance and Healthcare Subcategories. To start using Categories, see Defining Categories and Vocabularies for Content.

You can group Categories using Vocabularies, which can be either internal or public. The Marketing department may want to use Categories based on different customer segments, while the Human Resources department may want to use Categories based on the company organization. For more information, see Vocabulary Visibility. Liferay DXP includes built-in Vocabularies that you can use to audit your content in the Content Dashboard.

Tags are keywords for organizing your assets. Tags tell visitors of your website what the content is about, so they can find relevant information through search or navigation. For example, a Kitchenware Store might have different tags describing the store items, like glass, clay, or dishwasher-safe. Using these Tags in your content, visitors interested in clay kitchenware can quickly find relevant articles. Tags are not hierarchical, so you cannot group tags inside other tags. To start using Tags, see Tagging Content and Managing Tags.

The following table summarizes the main differences between Categories and Tags:

Categories Tags
Managed by administrators Managed by administrators and non-administrators
Grouped in Vocabularies Cannot be grouped
Hierarchical categorization Non-hierarchical categorization
Global site Categories are instance-wide Particular to each site

You can find Categories and Tags under the Categorization panel in the Site Navigation menu. From here, you can create new Categories and Tags or customize the existing ones. You create Tags and Categories at the Site level.

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Only Site administrators can manage Categories and Tags in the Categorization panel.

Find the Categories and Tags options under the Categorization panel

In addition to the Categorization panel, you can tag or categorize an asset at creation time or edit an existing asset using the Categorization section. Each Vocabulary is represented as a separate entry.

Tag and Categorize your content using the Categorization section

Vocabulary Visibility

Available: Liferay 7.3+.

When you create a new Vocabulary, you define its visibility and the visibility of the Categories included:

  • Public Visibility: Visitors can use Public categories to find the content through search or navigation. Public Categories are exposed to everyone.

  • Internal Visibility: You can use Internal categories to organize and search your content internally. Internal Categories are only exposed to Site members.

    In the Categories panel, Internal Vocabularies show a Hidden icon (Hidden) next to their name. Vocabularies with a Locker icon (Locker) can only be edited at the Global site.

    Tag and Categorize your content using the Categorization section

The visibility option is useful when you need to separate internal and external categorization. For example, your Marketing department may want to create Internal categories for organizing web content according to a specific target audience or criteria (for example, “USA visitors”, or “High-Margin”), without exposing these categories to consumers. At the same time, you may want to use public categories to provide relevant search results.

Before configuring your vocabulary’s visibility, consider these things:

  • Existing vocabularies from upgraded Liferay installations default to public visibility.

  • Content editors and administrators can use public or internal categories for asset categorization and search.

    Administrators can search for assets using Categories in Internal Vocabularies

  • Website visitors can use and discover only public categories in Pages, Widgets, Fragments, and Searches.

  • Search widgets in Content Pages don’t consider or expose internal vocabularies.

  • Custom widgets using a Category selector only show public categories by default.

  • When you map existing content using Fragments, only internal vocabularies are available.

  • If you select All Categories when mapping existing content, only public categories are displayed.

    Add new Categories from the Categorization section in the Content Editor

Default Vocabularies

Available: Liferay 7.3+.

In addition to the Topic Vocabulary from previous Liferay releases, there are two new vocabularies: Audience and Stage. These vocabularies are industry standards that Content Authors, Content Strategists, and Marketers can use in combination with the Content Dashboard to address common content strategy topics:

  • Determine content areas with enough content as well as content gaps
  • Audit of existing content
  • Discover trends or insights to create or adapt the content strategy

You edit the Audience and Stage vocabularies in the Global Site. You can use these vocabularies with Web Content Articles only.

Edit the Audience and Stage Vocabularies in the Global Site

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In previous Liferay versions, the Topic vocabulary exists on each Site. For 7.3+, the Topic vocabulary exists now at the Global Site.