Back button to parent category (from Post/product template to archive template)

How To
1

Hey everyone,

Is there a way that i can make a back button on a post/product template page that will go back to the parent categorie archive template?

So (in my case using woocommerce) for example: user is on /all categories/catgegory A/productpage
and back button will only be on product pages going to previous parent category.

On the old site i used a “cheap” script that basically went back to whatever the browser was on, but that was a very bad solution and has other problems (like when they come straight to product page or put something in shopping cart).

I am seeing issues with a new Woocommerce site that isn’t done yet, but had to go live already. I am gathering info from heatmaps/user paths/etc… and notice that the breadcrumbs aren’t popular for going back to the parent category. Of course i can do other things in styling, but a short button (especially for smaller screens) would be more convenient.

If someone only has an idea or link, that is of course also welcome. I found a tiny bit of info and methods, but i could not get anything to work.

2

Hey Stan,

do your products always have exactly one category (no more, no less) attached to them?

Best,

André

3

@aslotta 80% has only one category, but the other 20% often have 2 categories and in rare cases 3.
Hmm, that is of course a really good point!

4

Hey Stan,

maybe you just wanna output the categories somewhere in the template as links to their archive pages. That way it does not matter how many categories a product has. Probably the better option. :slight_smile:

Best,

André

5

Yes i agree. Although i do have that already, but there is room for improvement.
In other words, best way is to improve the website style a bit :wink:
example on product page (still work in progress)

Oh and to convince my cliënt again “this is the way” :face_with_peeking_eye:

6

Hey Stan,

although I don’t think it’s the best approach I just wanted to show you one way of approaching it using a small function to fetch the product category archive url and outputting a button only if there is exactly one category attached to the product: Video uploaded to CleanShot Cloud.

This is the function from the video:

function get_product_category_archive_link() {
    global $post;
    $cats = get_the_terms( $post->ID, 'product_cat' );
    if ( is_array( $cats ) && count( $cats ) === 1 ) {
        $cat = reset( $cats );
        return get_term_link( $cat );
    }

    return false;
}

Hope this helps.

Best,

André

1 Like
7

@aslotta Thanks André for the whole explanation and code (i saved the video).

I just tried it on cloned demo site and it worked (also having wpcodebox ready to go). I do actually have some other websites with a whole different setup that could benefit from this.