Comments on: Managing WordPress Tags

By: Amy Jo Yates

Amy Jo Yates — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:12:24 +0000

I like how you have simplified this topic. People ask me all the time how many tags, what to use etc. I’ve been likening Categories to Chapters in a book, and tags to the word index in the back. I like how you put it even better!

By: Spunky Jones Blog Tips

Spunky Jones Blog Tips — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:49:25 +0000

I have just recently setup another new blog and tags became a subject which I needed to know more about. Your post clears some things up for me, and I will have to consider cleaning up my other blog as far as tags.

What I have noticed is that many A list bloggers seem to be dropping tags all together. Has anybody noticed this and know what the reason might be for this movement? I have a few ideas, but just wanted to see if anybody else has some input to it.

By: Top CD Rates

Top CD Rates — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:58:37 +0000

I am just starting to get a hang of tags. One thing not mentioned is a tag can help a searcher find the right post. Well thought out tags can lead to higher traffic if they match low-competition phrases.

But how many of those can you stuff in one place? Good question.

By: Justin Tadlock

Justin Tadlock — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:26:57 +0000

Geoff
We sure do need to get it right. Here it is months later, and I’m still trying to think up a great tag strategy.

Daniel
You definitely have too many categories. Seeing that many categories from a user’s perspective is just daunting sometimes. Of course, it’s also neatly organized, which you don’t get with tags.

I haven’t really stepped into organizing tags yet. I’m sure there’s got to be some good plugins or tutorials for organizing tags for your users. WordPress 2.5 should have a manage tags page in your admin panel, which will at least help you behind the scenes.

Mostly, I was referring to getting your users to check out other posts from a single post’s page by using informative tag names but not overdoing it with too many tags. Only use the ones you need.

By: daniel

daniel — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:52:01 +0000

Hi,

What do you make of the following case. I have, besides categories, also sub-categories. For a long time, I wanted to share sub category-names/items over several categories, so:
* US
** Military defeats
** Military stalemates
* France
** Military defeats
** Militray stalemates

However, with categories, this is not possible, as Military defeats would only be subcategory for one higher level category.

So I moved on to tags. However, tags have no organization whatsoever. The it would just become an arbitrary list of items, France, US, Georgia, Defeats, losses, etc. But I’m looking for something in between there. I wont to have the hierarchical of tags – because I have a lot of categories, and I like to fold them – but I also want to share sub-categories, which then would become tags, so maybe a possibility to categorize tags?

See my site for a more live example. Some companies are French, some of them German, but then they are also companies, so they fall in both these categories or tags…

By: Geoff Dodd strategies

Geoff Dodd strategies — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:36:39 +0000

Thanks. We need to get this right. Or the whole blogosphere will become irrelevant. Much like the old keyword meta tags. GD.

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 02:33:15 +0000

Thanks Travis. It will be an ongoing experiment for me, just as putting together a solid group of categories. I’m going to try to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to tags.

By: Travis

Travis — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:20:34 +0000

Justin, great post! You did a great job explaining how to best make use of tags and categories – thanks for the tips.