“Custom Content Types“ (CCT) or “Custom Post Types” (CPT) are the same thing: ways to group together similar types of content. “Custom Post Types” is the official name since WordPress started with “posts” but I think it’s more useful to think of them as types of “content”. They are stored just like posts and pages with a unique ID (what Drupal calls a ‘node’), but aren’t considered the same as a post or a page. WordPress comes with 2 main default content types: posts and pages. Technically these are also CPTs: menus, media/attachments and links (an older default that won’t appear on newer WP sites).
Taxonomies are ways to categorize CPTs. Tags and Categories are the default taxonomies for Posts. If you are building a food website perhaps “color”, “flavor” and “season” would be usefully custom taxonomies. Tags and Categories are very similar but have a different admin interface and only Categories allow for nested (“parent/child”) sub-categories. Only “posts” are in the main default RSS feed but WordPress automatically builds an RSS feed for each taxonomy item and each CPT.
Custom Page Templates are special files for WordPress that control how content will be displayed. They are used only with pages in WordPress, not with posts or CPTs.
Here’s a breakdown:
CPT data types
- Posts
- Pages
- Menus, Attachments (Media), and Revisions (technically CPTs but not as useful to think of them in the context of this article)
- Common Custom Post Types added by plugins or themes:
- Forms (like Gravity Forms)
- Events
- Products
- Quotes
- Sliders
- Portfolio items
- FAQs
Used to structure and relate CPT data
- Tags
- Categories
- Post Formats
- Custom Taxonomies
Used to display CPT data
- “Archive” (an index or overview page that commonly shows 10 recent posts at a time. for a simple blog this is the homepage. But every taxonomy term will have an archive page and WordPress also builds archives pages by date.
- “Permalink” or “single”: shows one post
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What is the difference between a COMMENT and POST in wordpress?