CraftyWebbies Pillar & Cluster Manager

Description

CraftyWebbies Pillar & Cluster Manager brings a clean, structured way to manage your blog content directly inside the WordPress admin. Instead of a flat list of posts, you can organise every article into a topic hierarchy:

  • Pillar post — the comprehensive, authoritative guide on a broad topic.
  • Cluster posts — focused articles that go deep on a specific sub-topic and link back to the pillar.

This structure is recommended by SEO experts because it signals topical authority to search engines and creates a better reading experience for your audience.

Features

  • Meta box on every post — tick a checkbox to mark a post as a Pillar, or select its parent Pillar from a dropdown to make it a Cluster.
  • “Pillar Posts” submenu under Posts — a dedicated view that shows only your pillar content.
  • Custom admin column on the Posts list — shows a PILLAR or CLUSTER badge, cluster count with a one-click filter, or the parent pillar name.
  • Filter dropdown — quickly filter the Posts list to see all clusters for any pillar.
  • REST API support — all meta fields are exposed via the REST API. A virtual _cwpcm_pillar_url field lets you link a cluster by passing the pillar’s URL instead of its ID.
  • Template helper functionscwpcm_get_cluster_posts(), cwpcm_get_pillar_post(), cwpcm_is_pillar(), cwpcm_is_cluster(), and cwpcm_get_all_pillars() for use in your theme templates.
  • Translation-ready — fully internationalised with a craftywebbies-pillar-cluster-manager text domain.

Template Helpers

Use these functions in your theme templates:

cwpcm_is_pillar( get_the_ID() ) — returns true if the current post is a Pillar.
cwpcm_is_cluster( get_the_ID() ) — returns true if the current post is a Cluster.
cwpcm_get_pillar_post( get_the_ID() ) — returns the parent WP_Post pillar object for a cluster.
cwpcm_get_cluster_posts( get_the_ID() ) — returns an array of published cluster WP_Post objects for a pillar.
cwpcm_get_all_pillars() — returns all published pillar posts.

Credits

Developed by Kartik Jain.

Screenshots

Installation

  1. Upload the craftywebbies-pillar-cluster-manager folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
  2. Activate the plugin via Plugins Installed Plugins.
  3. Open any post and look for the Pillar / Cluster meta box in the sidebar.
  4. Mark a post as a Pillar, then link other posts as Clusters of that Pillar.

FAQ

Does this work with custom post types?

Currently the plugin works with the built-in post post type. Support for custom post types is planned for a future release.

Will activating this plugin affect my existing posts?

No. The plugin only adds new meta fields. Existing posts are unaffected until you explicitly set them as Pillars or Clusters.

Can a post be both a Pillar and a Cluster?

No. If you mark a post as a Pillar, any existing cluster assignment is removed, and vice versa.

Is this compatible with the Block Editor (Gutenberg)?

Yes. The meta box appears in the sidebar of both the Classic Editor and the Block Editor.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“CraftyWebbies Pillar & Cluster Manager” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

1.0.0

  • Initial release.