This feature allows you to organize the auctions and classifieds in your site by topic. The category is one of the more powerful features of the software because many other features of the software are attached to or configured within the category feature. Below are some of the features that are configured on a category by category basis.

Highlights of this feature:

• Ability to set category specific questions that only appear within this category and it's subcategories.
• Ability to have category specific field configurations allowing specific field control to a category level. This extends to all modules that support category specific content
• Control the columns/fields that appear within a specific category of the category browsing feature.
• Ability to set category specific icons for each category that can be managed to display or not within each category navigations configuration tool
• Ability to control what fields appear in the advanced search form when a category is chosen.
• Ability to control the columns/fields displayed within a category specific search result.
• Ability to have category specific category home templates
• Ability to have category specific category secondary browsing templates
• Ability to have category specific classified details templates
• Ability to have category specific auction details templates
• Ability to have category specific grid browsing templates used within the category browsing feature
• Ability to have category specific list browsing templates used within the category browsing feature
• Ability to have category specific gallery browsing templates used within the category browsing feature
• Ability to have category specific featured listing gallery template
• Ability to have category specific search form and search result template
• Ability to have category specific full size image body template
• Ability to have category specific classified print friendly template
• Ability to have category specific auction print friendly template
• Ability to have category specific listing durations
• Ability to have category specific pricing in fee based price plans
• Ability to have category specific browsing filter configurations customized to the fields/questions used within that category

You should have your category structure nailed down for the most part before you begin to tackle these features:

• Category specific questions - this feature depends solely on the category as they are attached to categories in the system
• Category specific field configurations - for further explanation look to the category specific field configuration page in the support wiki
• Category specific header elements - this allows you to set category specific elements like meta tags, title tags,….etc anything that can be in the html head. You can find more about this in the category specific header elements section
• many more that will be covered in their own sections

So this is just a reminder that you should at least have a good idea of your main categories before you move on to the above features. There's no use spending hours on a category's administration only to find out you need to remove that category.

This is pretty easy. There is a CATEGORIES link in the left side of your admin tool. Once inside that tool you can easily navigate categories like you would on the client side. And next to each category are:

• links into it to see its subcategories
• links to edit features attached to the category
• links to edit the category questions attached to that category
• link to delete that category

To edit any aspect of a category including name, description, types of listings allowed in that category, display order, category icon, category specific header elements (meta,…etc) you'll go here:

CATEGORIES > CATEGORY SETUP > [EDIT] (next to the category to change)

To affect category specific field configurations go here:

CATEGORIES > CATEGORY SETUP > [EDIT] (next to the category to change) > [FIELDS]

To affect category specific durations go here:

CATEGORIES > CATEGORY SETUP > [EDIT] (next to the category to change) > [DURATIONS]

To affect category specific templates go here:

CATEGORIES > CATEGORY SETUP > [EDIT] (next to the category to change) > [TEMPLATES]

To create/edit/delete category specific questions go here:

CATEGORIES > CATEGORY SETUP > [EDIT] (next to the category to change) > [QUESTIONS]

To create/edit/delete category specific browsing filters go here:

CATEGORIES > CATEGORY SETUP > [EDIT] (next to the category to change) > [BROWSE FILTERS] 

• Do not let your category structure become cumbersome to navigate - this means to check yourself if you are thinking of creating thousands of categories on your site. One thing you don't want your clients to do is need to click several times to get to listings they want to see. Also note that the more cumbersome your categories are to navigate the more cumbersome they are to administer
• You don't need a lot of categories to start - You can always add categories if you need. You should create a couple levels of categories to get started but even that can depend on the focus of your site. Think of your clients trying to sift through your category structure and think of how many listings they want to see. It would be best to get the client to a good number of listings with a little bit of variety.
• If a category gets full you can add more subcategories to it - You may find that some categories on your site are neglected while others are overflowing. For those overflowing categories add subcategories to further categorize.
• Categories are a filtering tool but not the only filtering tool - Don't forget that though the category is a useful filter of classifieds and auctions there are other filters you can use in our software.
• Think long and hard before putting regions in category structure - Before the creation of the geographic navigation feature and "region specific" sites needed to create their regions within the category structure. This made for the creation and management of a lot of categories. If you have a current category structure in mind just to category items by type think of creating that for every region you want to focus on. Many older sites focused on the US and the top layer of their category structure were the 50 states. Then there were the identical sets of categories under each state. Many put cities or counties as the second layer and then "type category" structure underneath that. That makes for a lot of work to create and maintain. Then think of backing out of one region to click into another region. That makes for a lot of clicking to navigate.
• Deleting a category deletes everything with it - that means any category specific questions attached, any category specific field configurations, any category specific header elements….anything. So if you delete a category in the default configuration you will be deleting all the items attached to it.
• Test use your category structure - check how many clicks it takes for your clients to get to what they want to browse in your site. If you have a category structure that has 10 levels it may take at least that many clicks to see something they want to browse. Compare that to just a few levels of categories (2-4) and combine with the use of the geographic navigation addon if your category structure includes region data. Or if there is no regional data in the category structure look to using the browsing filter.