Custom Taxonomy Sort for WordPress

I was knee-deep in a custom post type setup and realized my categories were just dumping out in alphabetical order, which made zero sense for the site’s flow. I needed to show "Featured" first, then "Local", "National", etc. - but WordPress only gives you name or ID sorting. That’s where this little plugin came in. Installed it, went to edit a term, and boom - there’s a new field called “tax-order” right below the name. Toss in a number, save, and suddenly the order is what I want. No coding, no hooks, no fuss.

The good stuff

It does exactly what it says. The “tax-order” field is dead simple - just type a number. I used 10, 20, 30, and so on, and it sorted perfectly. I even tested with decimals (like 15.5) and it still worked. The manual mode option is a nice touch too. If you need more control in specific templates, you can disable automatic sorting and roll your own with get_terms() args. That’s rare for something this lightweight. And honestly, it doesn’t slow anything down. I’ve got over 200 terms across three taxonomies, and it runs smooth as butter.

The not-so-good

It’s… kind of barebones. No UI improvements, no bulk editing, no visual drag-and-drop. You have to go into each term individually to set the order. If you’re managing dozens of terms, that gets tedious fast. Also, no admin column to see the sort order at a glance - you gotta open each one. And yeah, the developer is unknown, license is unclear, downloads aren’t listed. That’s a red flag for some folks. But it works, and it’s free, so I’m not losing sleep over it. Not for beginners who don’t know how to use the backend - they’ll be lost. And if you need real-time reordering, this isn’t it.

Bottom line

If you’re building a site with custom taxonomies and need non-alphabetical ordering, Custom Taxonomy Sort for WordPress is a solid, no-frills fix. It’s not flashy, but it delivers. Free, functional, and actually does what it promises. Worth every second of install time. Go ahead and grab it - especially if you’re already knee-deep in WordPress dev work. You’ll thank yourself later.