Category Page Setup

In the WordPress admin menu, navigate to “Settings” and then select “Permalinks.”

Scroll down to the “Optional” section, and you’ll see an option labeled “Category base.” By default, this field is empty. To add the “category” base, enter it into this field.

I have set up my permalink as you suggested. but the problem is not solved. Is there any other way to solve this problem?

The WordPress default category permalink https://changyuanflex.com/category/animals/ still works on your site.

But it is being redirected to https://changyuanflex.com/animals/ by the RankMath SEO plugin you’re using. See the curl output below.

And this is happening because you’ve turned on the RankMath SEO plugin’s “Strip Category Base” feature shown below — which removes the “category” base from category permalinks.

If you want to stick to WordPress’ default permalink structure with the “category” base, toggle OFF the RankMath feature.

$ curl  -I https://changyuanflex.com/category/animals/

date: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 07:41:51 GMT
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
location: https://changyuanflex.com/animals/
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000
x-redirect-by: Rank Math
cache-control: max-age=0
expires: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 07:41:50 GMT
x-httpd-modphp: 1
host-header: 8441280b0c35cbc1147f8ba998a563a7
x-proxy-cache-info: DT:1
cf-cache-status: DYNAMIC
report-to: {"endpoints":[{"url":"https:\/\/a.nel.cloudflare.com\/report\/v3?s=IilIVTUtUCueJxum81UvPtbeFWv6tN8kngNuJyb3%2Fw3cRiFwH668gs4JRQT1CVlDETm82VlnUrIEw4I37MpKBiit1ar6MFrr1cdPlqVdbRP8aEPnBUnV6wR02bvaGgUUWore"}],"group":"cf-nel","max_age":604800}
nel: {"success_fraction":0,"report_to":"cf-nel","max_age":604800}
server: cloudflare
cf-ray: 818f9ee22f3f033a-ACC
alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=86400

Thanks for your help, things did work as you said, when I turned off Strip Category Base in rank math seo, the category character came back in my page url! It’s really amazing. Now I would like to ask you a second question. Does turning on the Strip Category Base feature in rank math seo have a positive effect on my site’s seo? If not I would like to turn it off.

Does turning on the Strip Category Base feature in rank math seo have a positive effect on my site’s seo? If not I would like to turn it off.

SEO is not an exact science: there are as many opinions as there are noses.

As far as stripping the “category” base is concerned, even SEO plugin vendors have a different opnions on this, and the RankMath SEO plugin you’re using kept this on their own blog: eg https://rankmath.com/blog/category/seo-basics/

Ok, thanks for your patience, now I understand.