Tags - Do they help?

[ses5909]

A lot of blogs use tags, but I have never used them. Aren't they kind of redundant if you already use categories?

[Jelena]

I don't find a need for them on blogs. I don't browse other people's blog by tags.
But I would like to hear why people use them, too.

[Jeremy]

I don't think I've ever clicked on a tag link to find most posts on that subject. I suppose if you don't use categories at all and the tags operate as your organizational structure, then yes, that makes sense. But most just throw up a tag widget in addition to a category structure.

[t(-.-t)]

A lot of blogs use tags, but I have never used them. Aren't they kind of redundant if you already use categories?

Yes. Tags aren't so useful if you can stick to a well-defined category structure with your content. I like it for general/non-specific blogs where the topic of conversation varies with every post and the author isn't guaranteed to talk about the same 5-10 categories.

[BPartch]

I have never used tags (could not get the plug in to work) but I am planning on using them as a way to create less categories.

For example create a category called web design, then all posts that are design related would go in that cat, then use tags to arrange them into more specific groups. (programming, html, css, php, wordpress) and so on...

[ses5909]

Interesting Idea Ben. I do hate how sometimes you can have 10 categories under another one. Your categories can get so long.

[Calypso]

I have two blogs, one about my writing and one about weight loss. I don't use tags for my writing blog, but the person who hires me to write the other blog requests that I use tags. So far, I haven't seen that they've made much difference in hits, but they don't hurt anything either.

[GnomeyNewt]

Seems like they don't do anything? But they must, why do so many people talk about them?

[doorlight]

Tags help too but it takes time. Tags are also keywords, right?

[Prettyfem]

Tagging is very useful to your bog. I use Technorati tags on my blog.

If your blog software supports categories, and you use the included category system and are publishing RSS/Atom feeds then your categories will be read as tags on Technorati.

However, I use many popular Technorati tag words in my post that I don't have categories for. This is one reason why it is useful to use tags on your posts.

The Technorati Tag page for 'YouTube' at the time of writing this post contained 1,358,057 results from blogs where bloggers are blogging about YouTube.

I have searched through the tags on Technorati and have received visits to my blog through other searching the Technorati tags.

[fatnewt]

I see tag clouds often, but I've never clicked on or used one. What's the deal with those, really?

[pbradish]

I've never been a huge fan of tag clouds. If I want something I search for it :).

[ses5909]

I don't use them myself but I guess they work well with Technorati. I haven't quite gotten into technorati though so can't speak much on the subject.

[SarahG]

I put them on one of my sites on food. To make the categories work as tagging for the posts would require a lot of categories, so the tags allow me to add extra without have 100s of categories.

Do they make a difference? I think they do when you first publish the post, as a fresher post can get more exposure in Technorati, but after a while, no, I don't think it makes much difference.