Grade A

Remove Category URL – Remove 'category' base from category permalinks

Name: Remove Category URL – Remove 'category' base from category permalinks
Rating: 4.2 (58 reviews)
Author: Themeisle

⤓ Download v1.2.3 on WordPress.org ↗

by Themeisleupdated 2026-05-25🌟The Rising Star

Pretty permalinks that might break your entire site if you leave.

HealthyGrowing

74/100

It cleans up URLs effectively but carries a high risk of breaking your site if you deactivate it.

Loved18/40

Trustworthy13/15

Fair & Honest13/15

Maintained18/18

Momentum12/12

✂️

You might not need this plugin. Its core job is small enough to live in your theme's functions.php.

Show the snippet

// Remove the /category/ base from category URLs.
add_filter( 'category_rewrite_rules', function ( $rules ) {
    $new_rules = array();
    foreach ( $rules as $pattern => $rewrite ) {
        $new_rules[ str_replace( 'category/', '', $pattern ) ] = $rewrite;
    }
    return $new_rules;
} );

add_filter( 'category_link', function ( $link ) {
    return str_replace( '/category/', '/', $link );
} );

// Flush rewrite rules once on activation.
register_activation_hook( __FILE__, function () {
    flush_rewrite_rules();
} );

Keep in mind:The snippet does not handle 301 redirects from old /category/ URLs to the new structure; add a redirect rule separately if needed.

More plugins you can skip →

Active installs

~55,000

our estimate · wp.org shows 50k+

→ on track for 60k+in ~2 weeks

Rating

4.2★

58 ratings

Trend · vs a year ago

+773%

Growing fast

24 → 210 installs/day

Downloads over time

real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend

2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03

organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median

Growing fast · +773% in the last year

24/day a year ago→210/day today

Reviews

what people actually say

Remove Category URL is a simple, single-purpose plugin that many users find effective for cleanly stripping the "category" base from permalinks, but it carries a meaningful risk of breaking the entire site if deactivated without following a workaround, and some users report it blocking Google's indexing crawler.

What people like

+Removes the 'category' slug from URLs cleanly, without the side effects (404s, redirect issues) that come from using WordPress's built-in permalink settings alone.×4
+Works as a zero-configuration install — no settings page needed, just activate and it functions.×3
+Reported to work correctly despite years without updates, as the underlying WordPress category base mechanism has not changed.×3

Common complaints

−Deactivating the plugin breaks the entire site (pages, posts, and links all stop working), and the FAQ provides no guidance on how to safely remove it.×2
−At least one user reports the plugin caused Google Search Console to flag all URLs as invalid, blocking the Googlebot from indexing the site entirely.
−Adds unwanted elements to the WordPress admin area and promotes the developer's own blog.
−Some users report it simply does not work as described.×2

Review trustMostly organic

4.21★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.20★
10%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
past spikeReview timing — up to 50% of all reviews landed in a single month

Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower

2023-08-192025-01-102026-06-04

5★ reviews1–4★ reviews

All-time ratings · 58 total

5★

4★

3★

2★

1★

Latest reviews · 58 analyzed

2025-12-06★★★★★Уникайте!Laset
2023-08-06★★★★★Warning, blocks Google's indexing robot!spamlover1-shot
2023-03-12★★★★★Perfecto para mejorar las urls de nuestra web carlosmartinez001
2022-09-26★★★★★Not working with latest WP version PUShAUNE
2022-06-28★★★★★Still works perfectly hfng
2021-07-31★★★★★Still Works Great studioactiv8
2020-11-11★★★★★Works like a charm!toad78
2020-06-06★★★★★Great and without side effects!housePeople29
2020-06-05★★★★★Doesn't work as promised bhutjolokia
2020-02-13★★★★★great !Ümit Solmaz

Releases

recent versions from WordPress.org SVN

2026-05-25v1.2.2
2026-05-25v1.2.3
2026-01-12v1.2.1
2025-12-10v1.2.0
2025-09-23v1.1.5
2019-06-24v1.1.4
2019-06-21v1.1.3
2017-11-14v1.1.2

For developers & the curious

the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary above

Download signals

Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.

113

Baseline · median of last 7 organic days

193

Prior 7-day baseline

266

Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days

2,408

Mean release-day peak (30d)

398

Latest day · 2026-06-03(tail)

-41.5%

Week-over-week organic trend

Review signals

Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.

50%

Max month share · biggest single 30-day window

4.06

Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty

78%

5★ share in analyzed sample

10%

Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity

—

Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo

4.22 → 4.21★

Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered