Categories are how shoppers navigate a Magento store and how Google understands what the store sells. Get the structure right and a customer reaches the product they want in a couple of clicks while search engines index a clean, logical catalog. Get it wrong and you have a confusing menu for shoppers and a sprawl of thin, competing pages for Google.
This guide covers working with categories in Magento (Adobe Commerce) end to end: creating and managing them, the settings that matter, how to structure them for SEO and UX, and, for the developers, where category data actually lives.
Overview
- Magento categories form the catalog’s navigation tree: a root category, parent categories, and child categories that hold products.
- The admin path and core settings have stayed stable across the current 2.4.x line, so the setup steps below remain accurate.
- A good category structure serves two audiences at once: shoppers navigating the store and search engines crawling it.
🚀 Quick takeaway
Treat your category tree as both navigation and SEO architecture. A shallow, logical structure with anchor categories enabled helps customers find products and gives Google a clean catalog to index. The two goals point the same way.
What are Magento categories?
A Magento category is a container in the catalog that groups products and forms part of the store’s navigation. Categories are arranged in a tree:
- Root category is the top of the tree for a store. It is not shown to shoppers directly, but every visible category lives under it, and each store view is assigned a root.
- Parent and child (sub) categories are the categories shoppers actually browse, nested as deeply as your catalog needs.
- Anchor categories show products from their sub-categories as well as their own, and enable layered navigation filters. Most browsable categories should be anchors.
How to create a category in Magento
Creating a category is the most common task, so start here. In the admin:
- Go to Catalog > Categories.
- Select the parent category in the tree where the new one should live (or the root, for a top-level category).
- Click Add Subcategory.
- Set Enable Category to yes and give it a clear, keyword-aware Category Name.
- Under Content, add a short intro description and any CMS block or image.
- Under Display Settings, set the display mode and Anchor to yes so layered navigation works.
- Under Search Engine Optimization, set the URL key, meta title, and meta description.
- Save, then assign products under Products in Category.
That is the whole flow for a single category. Bulk creation and programmatic creation (via a data patch) are covered later for larger catalogs.
🚀 Quick takeaway
Create categories from the shopper’s path, not your org chart. Name and nest them the way customers search and browse, and the SEO follows, because a structure that reads clearly to people reads clearly to Google.
Where to find and manage the category structure
The full tree lives under Catalog > Categories, with the structure on the left and the selected category’s settings on the right. This is where you reorder, nest, enable, and disable categories.
Keep the tree shallow and predictable. Deep nesting buries products and creates long, weak URLs. Most stores are better served by a broad, flat structure than a deep one, because every extra level is another click between the shopper and the product.
Category settings that matter
A few settings do most of the work:
- Content. Add a short intro paragraph and, where useful, a CMS block. A category page with 100-250 words of genuine intro copy gives both shoppers context and Google something to index beyond a product grid.
- Display settings. Choose whether the page shows products, a static block, or both, and set the category as an anchor so filters appear.
- Permissions. On Adobe Commerce, category permissions control which customer groups can view or buy from a category, useful for B2B or members-only ranges.
🚀 Quick takeaway
Enable Anchor on browsable categories and add a short intro paragraph to each. Those two settings do more for UX and SEO than any amount of deep nesting, because they turn a bare product grid into a filterable, indexable page.
Categories, layered navigation, and SEO
Category structure and SEO are the same problem. A clean tree with anchor categories powers the filters shoppers use, but those same filters can generate thousands of crawlable URLs if left unmanaged. The fix is to structure categories well and then control how the filtered URLs are crawled, which is the subject of our guide to layered navigation.
The category-level SEO basics: set a descriptive URL key, write a unique meta title and description, add intro copy, and enable the canonical tag for categories under Stores > Configuration > Catalog > Search Engine Optimization. For the wider technical setup, our Magento SEO work ties category structure into the rest of the store’s crawl and indexing.
🚀 Quick takeaway
A messy category tree and a layered-navigation crawl problem are the same root cause. Structure the tree cleanly first, then control which filtered URLs Google may crawl, and you fix UX and SEO together.
Where category data is stored
For developers, categories are stored in Magento’s EAV structure. The core table is catalog_category_entity, with attribute values spread across the typed catalog_category_entity_* tables. The main columns on the entity table:
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| entity_id | Unique category ID |
| attribute_set_id | The attribute set for the category |
| parent_id | The parent category’s ID (how the tree is built) |
| path | The full ID path from root to this category |
| position | Sort order among siblings |
| level | Depth in the tree |
| children_count | Number of descendants |
| created_at / updated_at | Timestamps |
For larger catalogs, categories are often created or edited programmatically through a data patch rather than by hand in the admin. The categories are created in code, given their attributes and parent, and saved, which is the repeatable way to manage structure across environments without clicking through the admin each time.
🚀 Quick takeaway
The tree you see in the admin is parent_id and path in catalog_category_entity underneath. Knowing that is what lets a developer bulk-create or migrate categories with a data patch instead of rebuilding them by hand in every environment.
How scandiweb approaches Magento catalog structure
scandiweb has delivered over 2,100 eCommerce projects since 2003, many on Magento (Adobe Commerce), and category structure is one of the quiet decisions that shapes both conversion and SEO for years. Our approach is to design the tree around how customers actually shop, enable anchors and category SEO from the start, and manage structure in code for anything beyond a small catalog, so the same clean structure reaches every environment. When a store’s Magento development needs a catalog rebuild or migration, the category tree is part of the plan, not an afterthought.
Frequently asked questions
How do I create a category in Magento?
Go to Catalog > Categories, select the parent in the tree, click Add Subcategory, enable the category and name it, set its Content, Display Settings (including Anchor), and SEO fields, then save and assign products under Products in Category. For top-level categories, add the subcategory directly under the root.
What is a root category in Magento?
A root category is the top of a store’s category tree. It is not displayed to shoppers directly, but every visible category lives beneath it, and each store view is assigned a root category. It is the container that defines which catalog a given store view shows.
What is an anchor category?
An anchor category displays products from its sub-categories as well as its own, and it enables layered navigation filters on the category page. Most browsable categories should have Anchor set to yes, so shoppers see the full relevant range and can filter it.
How do I make Magento categories SEO-friendly?
Set a descriptive URL key, a unique meta title and meta description, and 100-250 words of intro copy per category, enable the canonical tag for categories in the catalog SEO settings, and manage how layered-navigation filter URLs are crawled so they do not create duplicate pages. Keep the tree shallow so URLs stay short.
Where are Magento categories stored in the database?
Categories use Magento’s EAV model. The core entity table is catalog_category_entity, which holds structural columns like entity_id, parent_id, path, position, and level, while attribute values (name, description, and so on) live in the related catalog_category_entity_* value tables.
Is your Magento category structure helping customers and Google, or working against both? Get your catalog structured right with us and we will design a tree built for navigation, SEO, and clean management across every environment.
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