Geek.Click

Category: Wordpress

  • WordPress Breadcrumb Problems (and how to fix them)

    Have you ever had a blog post where the breadcrumb trail just… vanished? Or worse, it showed up in a weird spot while every other post on your site looked fine?

    I ran into this exact issue recently and spent way too long digging through theme files, checking hooks, and comparing templates. The fix turned out to be surprisingly simple.

    The Symptoms

    • I had temporarily enabled breadcrumbs to check how I could apply them to the site
    • After they were disabled, or rather, the code was removed from the header and also from the single posts page in Theme editor / Templates, there was one specific post that still had the breadcrumbs appearing closer to the header than usual
    • Other posts and pages were completely unaffected, no breadcrumbs to be found

    The Culprit

    It all came down to categories.

    Breadcrumb plugins like Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and SEOPress work by displaying the first category assigned to a post in the breadcrumb trail. Here’s what the path typically looks like:

    text

    Home > Category Name > Post Title

    When I removed the category from that one problematic post, the entire breadcrumb line disappeared. That’s because the plugin had nothing to display in that middle spot.

    I then reapplied the same category and the breadcrumb never came back.

    Why This Happens

    Breadcrumb plugins handle categories in a specific way:

    • They pick the first category based on alphabetical order or the order they were added
    • If a post has no category, most plugins will hide the breadcrumb entirely
    • Child categories (subcategories) can sometimes display differently than parent categories

    In my case, that one post was assigned to a different category than all my other posts. The plugin tried to display it, but something about that category’s setup (maybe it was a child category or had different settings) made the breadcrumb render in an unexpected position.

    How to Fix It

    You have a few other options depending on what you want to achieve:

    Option 1: Reassign to the Correct Category

    Simply edit the post and assign it to the same category your other blog posts use. The breadcrumb should reappear and match the rest of your site.

    Option 2: Set a Primary Category (Yoast/Rank Math)

    If you’re using Yoast SEO or Rank Math, you can manually choose which category appears in the breadcrumb:

    1. Edit the post
    2. Scroll to the SEO meta box
    3. Look for “Primary Category”
    4. Select which category you want to display

    This overrides the default alphabetical/first-added behavior.

    Option 3: Leave It Uncategorized

    If you don’t want a breadcrumb on this particular post, leaving it without a category works. Just be aware that WordPress will automatically assign “Uncategorized” to any post without a category unless you’ve deleted or renamed that default category.

    Option 4: Hide Breadcrumbs with CSS (For One Post Only)

    If you want to keep the category but hide the breadcrumb just on this post:

    css

    .postid-123 .breadcrumb-class {
    display: none;
}

    Replace 123 with your actual post ID and .breadcrumb-class with your theme’s breadcrumb container class.

    The Takeaway

    If you ever notice a breadcrumb acting strangely on just one post, check its categories first. Nine times out of ten, that’s where the issue lives.

    It’s not a theme bug, it’s not a plugin conflict—it’s just how breadcrumb plugins handle categories by default. And once you know that, it’s a five-second fix.

    Have you run into any other weird WordPress breadcrumb issues? Drop a comment below—I’d love to hear what worked for you!

  • Create Consistent Content with AI: Turn Questions into Blog Posts

    Creating websites was never the hard part for me.

    The technical side was interesting. Learning SEO, building WordPress sites, setting up servers, experimenting with tools, and researching new ideas was exciting.

    But there was one problem I kept running into:

    I struggled to consistently create content.

    And without content, even the best website idea eventually becomes just another unfinished project.

    My Biggest Problem Wasn’t SEO

    When people talk about building niche websites, they usually focus on:

    • Finding profitable keywords
    • Writing articles
    • Building backlinks
    • Ranking on Google
    • Optimising pages for SEO

    I assumed those would be my biggest challenges.

    They weren’t.

    My biggest obstacle was much simpler:

    Creating content consistently.

    Why Traditional Content Creation Felt Difficult

    Writing a blog post from a blank page felt overwhelming.

    Recording podcast episodes felt unnatural.

    Taking photos for social media felt forced.

    Even replying to forum posts made me overthink every sentence.

    Every new project would start with excitement:

    “This is going to be great.”

    Then eventually the same thing happened.

    The ideas stayed. The motivation disappeared. The project stalled.

    The Realisation: I Wasn’t Running Out of Ideas

    After thinking about why I struggled, I noticed something important.

    I actually had no shortage of ideas.

    I was constantly curious.

    I was always asking questions.

    • Should I use subdomains or subdirectories?
    • How do 301 redirects actually work?
    • How do I find profitable niches?
    • How should I structure a homelab?
    • When should I use Nginx?
    • How do I properly secure WireGuard?

    I Naturally Learn Through Questions

    I realised something about myself:

    I don’t naturally sit down and think:

    “Today I am going to write a 2,500-word article.”

    That approach feels forced.

    Instead, I learn by asking questions.

    I explore a problem. I research solutions. I test ideas. I make mistakes. I improve.

    And then I realised:

    Maybe the conversations themselves are the content.

    Conversations Already Contain the Structure of a Blog Post

    A useful article usually contains:

    • A problem
    • A beginner’s perspective
    • Research and explanation
    • Common mistakes
    • Lessons learned
    • A final solution

    A good conversation already has those elements.

    Instead of staring at a blank document trying to create an article from nothing, I can start with genuine curiosity.

    I can ask questions, learn something valuable, and then transform that discussion into a useful resource for others.

    But Is AI Content Good Enough for SEO?

    This was my biggest concern.

    Would search engines reject content created with AI?

    The real question is:

    Does the content actually help people?

    There is a huge difference between:

    “Write me a generic article about VPNs.”

    and:

    “I am trying to secure my own WireGuard setup. Explain what I am doing wrong and help me understand the problem.”

    AI Isn’t the Author — It’s the Editor

    The way I see it now:

    I provide:

    • The curiosity
    • The questions
    • The goals
    • The decisions
    • The real-world experience

    AI helps with:

    • Structure
    • Clarity
    • Formatting
    • Editing
    • Readability

    AI is not replacing the thinking.

    It is helping communicate the thinking.

    The Best Content Comes From Real Problems

    The biggest advantage comes after actually doing something.

    Once I build, test, or experiment with something, I can add details that generic AI content cannot provide.

    • Mistakes I made
    • Solutions that failed
    • Commands that caused problems
    • Screenshots from my own setup
    • Performance results
    • Lessons learned

    These details transform an average article into something genuinely useful.

    My New Content Creation Workflow

    Instead of trying to become a professional writer, I am going to focus on something simpler:

    Learning in public.

    1. Ask genuine questions.
      Start with real problems I actually want to solve.
    2. Learn and experiment.
      Research solutions and test them.
    3. Turn the conversation into an article.
      Organise the discussion into something useful.
    4. Add personal experience.
      Include screenshots, mistakes, results, and lessons.
    5. Publish.
      Share the knowledge instead of keeping it hidden.

    Final Thoughts

    The thing stopping me from building websites was never SEO.

    It wasn’t keyword research.

    It wasn’t backlinks.

    It wasn’t even technical knowledge.

    The biggest obstacle was believing every article had to start as a perfectly written piece of content.

    It doesn’t.

    Sometimes the best content starts with a simple question.

    A question someone else might be searching for too.

    Every genuine problem I solve today could become the article that helps someone else tomorrow.