Scott Reilly

Reduce permalinks (category or post) that include entire hierarchy of categories to just having the lowest category in the hierarchy.
By default, WordPress replaces the %category% permalink tag in a custom permalink structure with the entire hierarchy of categories for the post’s first matching category. For example, assuming your site has a hierarchical category structure like so:
<pre><code>Applications
 |_ Desktop
 |_ Web
 |_ WordPress
</code></pre>
By default, if you have a permalink structure defined as <code>%category%/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%</code>, your post titled “Best Plugins” assigned to the “WordPress” category would have a permalink of:
<pre><code>https://www.example.com/applications/web/wordpress/2008/01/15/best-plugins
</code></pre>
If you activate the Single Category Permalink plugin, this would be the permalink generated for the post (and recognized by the blog):
<pre><code>https://www.example.com/wordpress/2008/01/15/best-plugins
</code></pre>
In order for a category to be used as part of a post’s permalink structure, <code>%category%</code> must be explicitly defined in the Settings -> Permalinks admin page as part of a custom structure, i.e. <code>/%category%/%postname%</code>.
For category links, <code>%category%</code> is implied to follow the value set as the “Category base” (or the default category base if none is specified). So if your category base is ‘category’, the above example would list posts in the ‘WordPress’ category on this category listing page:
<pre><code>https://www.example.com/category/applications/web/wordpress/
</code></pre>
With this plugin activated, that link would become:
<pre><code>https://www.example.com/category/wordpress/
</code></pre>
NOTE: The fully hierarchical category and post permalinks will continue to work. The plugin issues a 302 redirect to browsers and search engines pointing them to the shorter URL.
Links: <a href="https://coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/single-category-permalink/" rel="nofollow ugc">Plugin Homepage</a> | <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/single-category-permalink/" rel="ugc">Plugin Directory Page</a> | <a href="https://github.com/coffee2code/single-category-permalink/" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a> | <a href="https://coffee2code.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Author Homepage</a>
<h3>Hooks</h3>
The plugin exposes one filter for hooking. Code using this filter should ideally be put into a mu-plugin or site-specific plugin (which is beyond the scope of this readme to explain). Less ideally, you could put them in your active theme’s functions.php file.
c2c_single_category_redirect_status (filter)
The ‘c2c_single_category_redirect_status’ hook allows you to specify an HTTP status code used for the redirect. By default this is 302.
Arguments:
<ul>
<li>$status (integer) : The default HTTP status code</li>
</ul>
Example:
<pre><code>/**
 * Change the redirection HTTP status to a 302.
 *
 * @param int $code The HTTP status code. By default 301.
 * @return int
 */
function scp_change_redirect_status( $code ) {
 return 302;
}
add_filter( 'c2c_single_category_redirect_status', 'scp_change_redirect_status' );
</code></pre>

Single Category Permalink

Reduce permalinks (category or post) that include entire hierarchy of categories to just having the lowest level category.

Archetyped

Cornerstone makes WordPress practical for any type of site by enhancing its content management capabilities. Too long have we had to resort to hacks like using categories in menus to build a pseudo site structure (you know what I’m talking about).
Cornerstone enhances your WordPress site in several ways. One of the most useful features is one that allows WordPress to be used for sites that go beyond just blogging– Posts in Sections. Create a section, add posts to it, they show up when visitors navigate to that section. Simple as that. It really is, but because you’re awesome <a href="http://archetyped.com/know/how-to-organize-posts-in-sections-in-wordpress-with-cornerstone/" rel="nofollow ugc">here’s a tutorial on how to do it</a>.
<h3>Thanks for the Support!</h3>
The support from the users that love Cornerstone is huge. You can support Cornerstone’s future development and help to make it even better by donating or even just by sending me a nice message 🙂
<a href="https://gum.co/cnr-donate" rel="nofollow ugc">Donate to Cornerstone</a>
<h3>Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>”NEW: Content Types” – Add custom fields to default (posts, pages, etc.) and custom (events, properties, etc.) post types</li>
<li>Posts in Sections (see above for more info. Why are you reading from the bottom up?)</li>
<li>Structured permalinks – post permalinks are based on the section they are in (e.g. <code>/section-name/post-name/</code>)</li>
<li>RSS for Sections – Let users subscribe to and receive updates for specific sections on the site.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Next Up</h3>
<ul>
<li>Template functionality – enhanced page titles, featured content, etc.</li>
<li>And more, which is where your feedback comes in.</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://archetyped.com/tools/cornerstone/" rel="nofollow ugc">Plugin home page</a>

Cornerstone

I found the idea of this plugin quite useful so I was tempted to give a five star rating. But the permalink function is not fully configurable and does not work without trailing slashes which in some cases might be wanted. 
Since I found that a central part of the task the plugin should be used for is not functional I only gave it a 3 stars rating.



Does its job but breaks permalinks

Enhanced content management for WordPress

Single Category Permalink vs Cornerstone