Taxonomy planner

What the planner checks

The planner compares three lists you give it: your categories, your tags and a sample of content items with the category and tags each one carries. It reports:

• Items without a category, or with a category that is not in your list.
• Spelling and case differences, such as an item tagged "accessibility" when the list has "Accessibility".
• Categories with no sample items. That may mean the category is not needed, or that your sample is too small to say.
• Tags no sample item uses, and tags used on items but missing from the list.
• Terms in both lists. A word that is both a category and a tag suggests its role has not been decided.
• Near-duplicates, such as a singular and a plural of the same word, or the same words with different punctuation.

It also counts how many sample items fall in each category, so you can see lopsided groupings at a glance.

How to format the sample

Put one item on each line, in three parts separated by a vertical bar:

Title of the item | Category | Tag one, Tag two

Leave the tag part empty if the item has no tags. Twenty to fifty items give a useful picture; a handful will flag spelling problems but not much else. Pick items from different sections and different ages, because older content is where label drift would show first.

Reading the results

The planner points things out; it does not decide for you. Some findings will be deliberate. A category with no items in your sample may exist for content you are about to publish. Others will be the first sign of a scheme that needs tidying.

When you see several near-duplicates, the lasting fix is a rule rather than a one-off correction. Decide whether tags are singular or plural, whether they use title case or lower case, and whether acronyms are spelled out. Write the rule down where editors will see it.

When a term appears as both a category and a tag, decide which job it does. Categories answer "where does this belong?" and normally take one value per item. Tags answer "what else is this about?" and may take several. The taxonomy guide covers the distinction with examples.

Taxonomies, filters and search engines

If your categories and tags will drive filters on listing pages, plan how those filters appear in addresses. Google's guidance on faceted navigation recommends the standard "&" separator for parameters, a consistent filter order, and a 404 status when a combination returns no results. It also describes blocking filter addresses from crawling where they are not needed in search. These are developer decisions, but they flow from the taxonomy, so it helps to raise them early.

The download

The CSV export lists each sample item with its title, category and tags as you entered them, ready to extend in a spreadsheet. Add columns for the corrected category and tags, and you have the start of a mapping table for re-tagging content.

Doing it without the tool

1. Write your categories and tags in two columns.
2. List twenty or more items with their category and tags.
3. Sort the items by category and count them.
4. Sort all labels alphabetically and look for neighbours that mean the same thing.
5. Mark any label that appears in both columns.

Going further

A planner works on the labels you already have. To find out which labels your visitors would choose, run a card sort: Digital NSW recommends at least five to six participants and 30 to 40 cards, especially for an open sort. Our card sorting and tree testing guide explains how. For a full scheme with rules, definitions and a migration mapping, see taxonomy design.

A worked illustration

Privacy

The planner runs on this page. Your lists and items are not sent anywhere or stored after you close the page.

Sources checked 4 November 2026 for taxonomy planner

1. Card sorting, Digital NSW
2. Faceted navigation, Google