Banish “Uncategorized” posts forever

As soon as you start writing a WordPress post, it receives a category. Unless you’ve changed the category settings, your default category will always be “Uncategorized.”

There are hacks to fix this.

First off, you can change the default category for your posts. This way, whenever you begin writing a new post, it automatically starts off with the category you’ve chosen.

From the left-hand menu, go to Settings > Writing.

Change the Default Post Category to whatever you want, for example, your most common category.

Alternatively, you could rename the “Uncategorized” category itself. Not only will this affect how new posts are categorized, but it will also update any posts from the past that were saddled with the “Uncategorized” tag.

You could, for instance, create a friendlier, catch-all category such as “General” or “Tips.”

From the left-hand menu, go to Posts > Categories.

Find the “Uncategorized” category in the list at right. Click on it.

Edit the name of the category and the category slug.

Click the “Update” button.

You’ve got yourself a brand new default category that should be a little more descriptive and professional than “Uncategorized.”