Current Behavior: In Optimizely, products are currently assigned only to the most specific (end-node) category within a 3-level taxonomy.
For example, if the category tree is:

Power Tools > Drills > Cordless Drills

Then a product like a cordless drill is assigned only to the "Cordless Drills" category, and not to "Drills" or "Power Tools".

Problem: This structure causes significant limitations when using the rule engine—specifically the “Product In Category” rule. Since products are not assigned to higher-level categories, those categories cannot be used effectively in rules.

This creates a major pain point when building dynamic catalog restriction groups. Users are forced to assign rules at the lowest-level categories, resulting in excessive manual configuration and a time-consuming setup process.

Proposed Enhancement: Enable category inheritance within the rule engine so that:

If a product is assigned to a subcategory, it is implicitly considered part of all its parent categories.

Rules applied to a higher-level category should automatically include products assigned to any of its descendant categories.

Benefits:

Significantly reduces the time and complexity required to build and maintain catalog rules.

Makes the rule engine more intuitive and aligned with how category hierarchies are conceptually structured.

Improves scalability and efficiency for merchandisers and admins managing large product catalogs.