Simple Custom Post Order
Plugin Health & Stats
A focused way to control WordPress content order
Simple Custom Post Order solves one specific WordPress problem: sometimes publish date, title, or ID is not the order you want visitors to see. The plugin adds drag-and-drop ordering to supported post types and taxonomies so editors can set a manual sequence without changing dates or maintaining custom numeric fields.
That makes it useful for portfolios, team members, testimonials, services, FAQs, products, event listings, resource libraries, and other content where the order is editorial rather than chronological. It can also work with standard Posts and Pages when a site genuinely needs a fixed custom sequence.
How the workflow works
After activation, you choose which post types and taxonomies should support custom ordering under the plugin settings. Once enabled, the normal WordPress admin list becomes the ordering interface. You drag items into the sequence you want and the plugin stores that order for WordPress queries that respect menu order.
The current plugin also supports taxonomy ordering and WooCommerce products. For editors, this is simpler than editing individual order values. For developers, the important detail is that the plugin works with WordPress query behavior rather than creating a separate front-end content system.
Where it fits well
Simple Custom Post Order is strongest when the site owner already has the content model they need and only wants manual sequencing. A portfolio can place flagship projects first. A staff directory can group leadership before other team members. A WooCommerce store can manually prioritize products. A services site can keep its most important service at the top without manipulating publish dates.
It is also a reasonable fit for custom post types created by another plugin or theme as long as those post types expose the normal WordPress admin interface. That keeps the plugin useful across many different site stacks.
What to check before relying on it
Manual ordering is not always the right answer. Search results should normally remain relevance-based, news content usually belongs in chronological order, and large catalogs may be better served by rules such as sales, stock, taxonomy, or custom scoring. If another plugin, theme, or custom query explicitly sets its own orderby value, that query may override the manual order.
Be especially careful when resetting an established order. The plugin’s reset tool can return menu-order values to zero for selected post types. On a production site, confirm how the current theme or query uses those values before resetting a large content set.
Maintenance and compatibility
Simple Custom Post Order is actively maintained on WordPress.org. Version 2.8.9 was released on September 29, 2026 and includes fixes around filtered admin views, recent-post queries, taxonomy pagination, long page trees, and keyboard reordering. The current release requires PHP 7.4 and is tested with the current WordPress 7.1.2 release.
The modern release also uses a dependency-free drag-and-drop implementation and includes keyboard support. That matters for a small utility plugin because ordering controls need to stay usable without adding a large front-end framework to the site.
Who should use Simple Custom Post Order?
Choose it when you need a lightweight manual ordering layer for posts, pages, custom post types, WooCommerce products, or taxonomies and you want the ordering controls inside the normal WordPress admin experience.
Skip it when the desired order should be calculated automatically from dates, popularity, revenue, relevance, or another dynamic signal. In that case, a query or filtering solution is usually a better fit than manually maintaining the sequence.
PluginSuggest verdict
Simple Custom Post Order is a practical utility rather than a broad content-management suite. Its value is that it stays close to the WordPress workflow: enable ordering where needed, drag items into place, and let the site use that order. For editors who repeatedly fight default date-based ordering, that narrow focus is exactly the point.