Categories, tags, performers & channels

Taxonomy is how a tube site stays navigable once it holds thousands of videos. TubePress gives you four ways to group and cross-reference content — categories, tags, pornstars and channels — each with its own admin screen, its own public pages, and its own role in helping visitors (and search engines) find more to watch.

This page explains each entity, the fields you fill in, where it appears on the front site, and how to keep the whole structure tidy as your library grows. They are all managed under the Videos group in the admin sidebar.

Categories

Categories are your top-level genres — the broad buckets a visitor browses first. Manage them at /admin/categories.

Fields: Type, Name (required), Slug (auto-generated from the name if left blank), Description, and a Thumbnail image used on category cards.

On the front site each category has its own page at /category/{slug}, and they are all listed at /categories. Category listings show a video count, and — when CTR ranking is on — lead with the best-performing video's thumbnail.

Tags

Tags are lightweight keyword labels for the specifics a category is too broad to capture — a position, a setting, a niche. Manage them at /admin/tags.

Fields: Type, Name (required) and Slug. Tags are deliberately minimal — no description or image — because their job is breadth, not depth.

Each tag has a page at /tag/{slug}, with the full index at /tags. Because tags are cheap to create, they are the easiest taxonomy to let sprawl — see the tidiness tips at the end.

Performers (pornstars)

Performers — labelled Pornstars throughout the admin — are the people in your videos. Manage them at /admin/performers.

Fields: Type, Name (required), Slug, Biography, a Photo (shown as a round avatar), Country, Date of birth, and a Link to an external profile.

Each performer has a profile page at /pornstar/{slug} listing their videos, with the directory at /pornstars. Like categories, performer listings can sort and illustrate themselves by CTR when ranking is enabled.

Channels

Channels represent the studio, brand or producer behind a video — the source it came from. Manage them at /admin/channels.

Fields: Type, Name (required), Slug, Description, a Logo image, and a Website URL.

Each channel has a page at /channel/{slug}, listed at /channels.

Channels as users

Channels can double as user accounts, which is what turns a flat catalogue into something that feels like a creator platform. This is governed by a single switch — Channels are users — under Settings → General, in the Users column. It is on by default.

When the setting is on, importing content creates a user account for each channel and assigns that channel's videos to it — so the channel effectively owns and uploads its own library. When it is off, channels are organisational labels only. Either way, the channel profile itself — logo, description, pages — is always created.

Tips for a clean taxonomy

A well-kept taxonomy is the difference between a site visitors can browse and one they bounce from. A few habits keep it healthy:

• Categories are few and stable; tags are many and specific. Resist the urge to create a new category for something a tag would describe better.
• Reuse, don't duplicate. The Relations pickers on the video form search existing entries — attach an existing tag rather than typing a near-identical new one.
• Mind the Type. A category, performer or channel only pairs cleanly with videos of the same Type, so set it correctly when you create the entry.
• Fill in slugs and descriptions on the entries that matter — they shape your URLs and give SEO something to work with.
• Translate the big ones. Each entity's edit screen has a Translations panel (and categories support AI-assisted bulk translation) so names read naturally in every language you enable — see Internationalization.
• Prune in bulk. Every taxonomy list supports bulk delete for clearing out empty or duplicated entries.

Next steps