A Guide to WordPress Template Hierarchy (2025 Edition)

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Whether you want to customize themes or build new ones from scratch, it's important to understand how the WordPress template hierarchy works.

First of all, this WordPress system helps keep everything organized. Once you know what all the theme template files are, what they do, and how they are prioritized, you can alter almost every aspect of your WordPress website's design.

In this article, we'll explain what the WordPress template hierarchy is and how it works. We'll then provide a full breakdown of the template files involved in each WordPress page type (including a cheat sheet), to cambodia phone number data help you use them to your advantage.

Let's get to it!

An Introduction to the WordPress Template Hierarchy
Typically, non-dynamic websites use static HTML and CSS files to render their content. However, WordPress is a dynamic platform based on the PHP programming language . Every WordPress site loads multiple .php files , each of which controls the look and feel of a specific section or component.

Each time you load a certain type of page, the Content Management System (CMS) looks for the template files that correspond to it.

For example, if you use the WordPress search function and load a search results page, the CMS will look for two template files:

search.php , which controls the appearance of search results pages
index.php , which is the default template file that WordPress uses when it can't find the top option within each hierarchy
The template files you have access to will depend on the theme you're using. All WordPress themes are a collection of templates, stylesheets , and other elements, such as images . So in the example above, if the theme you're using includes a search.php template , WordPress will find and load it.

In some cases, you may use a theme that doesn't include template files for the types of pages you want to load. That's where the WordPress template hierarchy comes in. It's a built-in system that tells WordPress which template files to load and in what order.