Taxonomy
Contentful's Taxonomy feature enables companies to describe and classify content based on established terms. These terms are created at the organization level and groups of terms are enabled on specific content types. The primary goal of Contentful's taxonomy feature is to improve content discoverability and scalability.
In the past, Contentful users could only organize their content through content types, entries, and Tags. However, the intended uses for tags are:
Roles and permissions.
Workflows management.
For all other uses regarding organizing and searchability of content, we advise using this taxonomy feature from now on.
Applying consistent terminology across an organization not only enhances editorial experience but also supports content strategy and governance. By ensuring content is organized logically and consistently across the organization, allows for the systematic arrangement of information based on concepts. This makes it easier to find, access, and manage content across the platform.
For API documentation, read our developer docs.
NOTE: Taxonomy's infrastructure is not a dedicated infrastructure because it doesn't rely on reserved capacity specifically for storing, indexing, and delivering content for a single customer. Instead, it operates within a shared or multi-tenant environment, organizing content across various entities without the need for exclusive infrastructure.
Taxonomy overview
Key benefits
Enhanced content organization: Contentful’s taxonomy feature allows users to categorize content into groups (or concept schemes), making it easier to navigate and manage large volumes of content.
Improved content discoverability: properly categorized content can make content easier to find by users and search engines, leading to better SEO performance and user engagement.
Consistency and accuracy: by providing predefined categories and terms, taxonomy helps ensure that content is labeled consistently across the platform.
Flexibility and scalability: Contentful’s taxonomy feature is flexible, allowing for the creation of complex hierarchical structures that can grow with your content needs.
Core features
Hierarchical structures: users can create multi-level hierarchies in the Taxonomy manager, enabling the organization of content in a concept-to-subconcept (or “parent-child”) relationship. For more information, read our Taxonomy manager.
Integration with content models: seamlessly integrate taxonomies with existing content models with our application of taxonomies. Taxonomy concepts can be assigned to entries, enabling sophisticated content relationships and metadata tagging. For more information, read our Assignment of taxonomy.
Enhanced search, filtering and saved views: concepts can be used as a search filter and saved as a view. This allows users to filter content based on taxonomy terms, improving the user’s ability to find relevant content quickly. For more information, read our Taxonomy: search and filter.
API access: developers can access and manage taxonomies programmatically through Contentful's Content Management API, allowing for automation and integration with other systems. For more information, read our developer documentation.
Common use cases
Create a more granular search experience: you can set search filters for taxonomy concepts and create saved views for content that has a taxonomy concept assigned to it.
Improve grouping or categorizing content: assign taxonomy concepts to entries instead of adding inconsistent naming conventions.
Taxonomy or tags: use cases
In the past, Contentful users could only organize their content through content types, entries, and tags. However, the intended uses for tags are:
Roles and permissions: the purpose of Contentful’s taxonomy is to classify content. Use tags to manage content access for users within the organization.
Workflows management: use tags to manage workflow permissions. For more information, read our Workflows.
For all other uses regarding organizing and searchability of content, we advise using the taxonomy feature.
Best practices
Regularly review: review and manage your taxonomies to ensure it meets the needs of your content strategy.
Educate your team: make sure all content creators and managers understand the taxonomy and how to apply it consistently.
Understanding SKOS
Contentful’s taxonomy aligns with the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) standards for its data model. Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) uses classification schemes such as controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and thesauri.
Instead of a set of strict rules, SKOS provides guidelines for capturing information. The objective of SKOS is to make it easier for users and computers to share and interact with knowledge organization systems via the Semantic Web.
Limitations
You can create up to 6000 concepts.
You can create up to 2000 concepts per concept scheme.
You can create up to 20 concept schemes.
You can create concept hierarchies with up to five levels of depth.
You can create up to 10 validations per content type.
You can assign up to 10 concepts to a content entry.