Methods and systems are provided for generating training data for training a classifier to assign nodes of a taxonomy graph to items based on item descriptions. Each node has a label. For each item, the system identifies for that item one or more candidate paths within the taxonomy graph that are relevant to that item. The system identifies the candidate paths based on content of the item description of that item matching labels of nodes. A candidate path is a sequence of nodes starting a root node of the taxonomy graph. For each identified candidate path, the system labels the item description with the candidate path equivalently with leaf node or label of the leaf node. The labeled item descriptions compose the training data for training the classifier.