ProBlogger 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Topic: Categories vs. Tags

ProBlogger 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Topic: Categories vs. Tags http://www.problogger.com/31days/ A Community for Talking about Making Blogs Better en Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:52:32 +0000 Kinderlehrer on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=3#post-6284 Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:53:12 +0000 Kinderlehrer 6284@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Just in case anyone using blogger sees New Wife's request for a tag cloud widget, and my previous reply, here is a follow-up: Blogger now has quite a menagerie of plugins - called 'Gadgets' that you can choose from in the Layout > Page Elements area. Choose 'Add a Gadget', which opens a pop-up, and either choose from the categories on the left hand side, or type a search term in the box at the top right.  Click on the '+' to add, and re-order your gadgets by dragging and dropping into place. So no longer do you have to play around with the html as much as you did even a few years ago, when I used the platform. There are several tag clouds to choose from (instead of using or modifying 'Labels'). I look forward to seeing what you choose New Wife! Michael on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=3#post-5956 Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:58:08 +0000 Michael 5956@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ A big thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread.  This thread has been really valuable.  It has helped me get a clear structure in my head of my blog and how to structure my content.  antharjalaya on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-5658 Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:24:58 +0000 antharjalaya 5658@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ I use both categories and tags in my wordpress blog. I did the mistake of allowing Google to list both category pages and tag pages creating hundreds of duplicate pages. So, Do not forget to remove the tick for tag , category pages from your site map builder. Now I have less pages indexed but more organic traffic.   I started using a flash based tag cloud 5 months ago. Since then my page views increased by closer to 40% becuse users tend to clik around this flash based tag cloud. Install this for few days and see  the results. Rachel on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-5656 Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:22:09 +0000 Rachel 5656@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Re-reading this post reminds me that my tags and categories are hopeless.  Currently all of my recipe posts are in the category 'recipes' and I don't have any sub-categories.  My tags are the opposite and are an absolute disaster.  I'm tempted to delete all of the tags and start all over again but will that then result in 404s for the tag archives that will no longer exist? Azam on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-5653 Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:08:58 +0000 Azam 5653@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ I think tags give a broder idea to a reader about your blog contents. And makes your reader easy to find what they want. For example: If i am having a category Gadget, then i can use various tags for posts in that category like mobiles,camcoders,cameras etc. So it help the reader that your Gadget category contains abou those gadgets that are in the tag. It also help to show on which topic you write more. So I think tags are very helpful. Kinderlehrer on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-5635 Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:13:38 +0000 Kinderlehrer 5635@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @New Wife This may help with your Blogger tag cloud widget: Go to Layout>Page Elements and add a Labels Widget under Add a Page Element Option <a href="http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2008/06/label-cloud-widget-for-blogger-blogspot.html"><img src="http://simpletricksblog.googlepages.com/label-cloud-for-blogger.jpg" alt="Label Cloud Widget For Blogger Or Blogspot" /></a> Then choose how you want to list the labels. Ravi Gupta on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-4832 Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:52:40 +0000 Ravi Gupta 4832@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Thanks Lara for your help.  Sorry it took me some time to get back here to thank you.  All the best,  Ravi larakulpa on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-4280 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:48:56 +0000 larakulpa 4280@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Hi Meg, To be perfectly honest, this is the first time I've ever heard of Multiply.com - Combine that with the fact that what you're saying about tags/categories is unlike pretty much every other blogging tool out there (self hosted or not). Tags ARE there for search engines in a way, for MOST blogs. Tag archives show up in the search engines, for most blogs. I'm not sure how Multiply.com handles tags, but it's clearly quite different, given what you've said here. What you're saying may work for Multiply.com blogs, however it's not the case for self hosted, or other popular free blog hosts like blogger and wordpress.com.   barefootmeg on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-4194 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:16:01 +0000 barefootmeg 4194@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ i use multiply.com for my blog.  they have tags, but not categories.  but based on lara's description, i would say that multiply's tags are probably bested used with the category idea in mind.  you don't want to put more than a few tags per post.  you can.  but the more tags you include the harder you're actually making it for people to find the content they're most interested in.  instead, you want to organize your posts under just a few key tags that will help people find what they're looking for quickly and easily.  in other words, on multiply, tagging something is like putting it into a folder.  it's a means or organizing your content.  but tags are more flexible than folders because you can put the same post into multiple tags.  i haven't noticed any difference, when googling for a post, between posts with lots of tags and posts with only a few.  google looks at all of the content on a page, not just the tags.  so tags aren't there for the search engines.  they're there as a means of organizing your content. and i do like the idea of sub-tags.  it's something that multiply doesn't have yet, though i've put in a request and crossed my fingers. itsdoug on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-4191 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:11:16 +0000 itsdoug 4191@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ thanks for all the wonderful info and tips! larakulpa on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3932 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:50:45 +0000 larakulpa 3932@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in getting back to you - let me see here... @Michael - Tags and keywords definitely go hand in hand. Part of tagging is also for SEO purposes, so yes, you should include keywords in your tags. However be cautious not to go overboard, because you should only be using keywords that you're going to use elsewhere on the site when you're using them in tags (In the All In One SEO plugin, use them as desired). @Lisamann - You should be placing them on posts as well as in a tag cloud if you're using a tag cloud. You may decide down the road that the tag cloud is taking up too much space, and want to remove it, and then you won't be presenting them anywhere on the site. There's a PHP call for tags but you should either know a little about manipulating WP themes before trying it, use the WordPress.org forums for help, or hire someone to do it for you. @gnowfglins - Congrats on your first category cleaning! :) Glad I could help. @Richard - There are plugins available for that for WordPress - do a search for "category management" and see if you can find one that suits exactly what you're looking to do... I know I've seen them, I just can't think of the names right now. You can then disable the plugin when you're done and delete it if so desired. :)   Richard-Train-the-Trainer on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3912 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:27:24 +0000 Richard-Train-the-Trainer 3912@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Very helpful thread.  Thanks Lara.  I am new and have been assigning multiple categories.  I'll have to rethink the category list, but it makes sense what you have explained here.  I wish WP had a global change feature.  Like, check the various posts (in the edit list) and simultaneously assign one category to them-- as opposed to editing every post and changing categories there, individually. gnowfglins on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3888 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:27:43 +0000 gnowfglins 3888@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Lara ~ This has been so helpful! I realized after reading this that I had WAYYYY too many categories! I just cleaned them up. My specificity is going in the tags now. Although I do many recipes, so the recipe categories/sub-categories are pretty specific, but like you pointed out, categories works for recipes. For the rest of my posts, I have just a few categories (Kitchen Notes, Articles, I think that is it now!) Thanks! Lisamann on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3876 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:04:49 +0000 Lisamann 3876@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Ok, a dumb newbie question: I've got a tag cloud in my sidebar. Is it better to have tags listed in the posts? Or both? And if so, how do you get them tags inserted in theposts in wordpress?  ( Thanks everyone for your input, I've been wondering about tags vs categories, this has been so helpful.) Michael on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3776 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:44:17 +0000 Michael 3776@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Hi Lara, I get the theory of the tags and categories and practice will make perfect.  I have another question though: How do the tags and categories (more specifically the tags) relate to keywords? Should I be doing keyword research for my posts and include those as tags.  And would they be the same keyword that I place in the all in on SEO pack tool in the post pages (for wordpress)? This forum has given me so much more to work on in my blog than the just the 31 DBBB.  I think I might just go past the mall and go straight to the pub.  You probably will have to go find a place where there is no internet connection for a week :-). Thanks again - Michael larakulpa on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3287 Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:29:46 +0000 larakulpa 3287@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @all - :) thank you, I'm glad I can help. New Wife on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3258 Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:34:54 +0000 New Wife 3258@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @<a href="http://www.ginkgoconsulting.com/">larakulpa</a> no problem. Thanks for taking the time to reply regardless fredinchina on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3232 Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:12:38 +0000 fredinchina 3232@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @ Lara: Thank you, it does clarify; you are an awesome master of your art :-))) Michael on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3218 Sat, 18 Apr 2009 06:46:18 +0000 Michael 3218@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @lara -- Thanks so much for the help :)  larakulpa on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3202 Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:28:21 +0000 larakulpa 3202@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @dailyharold - I'm glad to have helped! :) @fredinchina - No, that's perfectly fine. However what I meant was don't categorize a post in more than one category. So, let's say you're writing about the Lunar Festival in China. You're not going to put the post in "China" AND in "Lunar Festival"... What I'd be doing is putting it in China, and then tagging it with: Lunar Festival, China, Beijing, moon cakes. Does that help clarify? @Ravi - Subcategories... Okay, food blog, for example. You post recipes 95% of the time. You'd have the following categories: Breakfast Lunch Dinner Snacks For subcategories, you'd be doing something equivalent to: Breakfast (main cat)  - Omelettes (sub cat)  - Pancakes and Crepes (sub cat)  - Muffins and Scones (sub cat) Lunch  - Sandwiches  - Soups  - Salads Dinner  - Pasta  - Poultry  - Beef  - Vegetarian Does that make sense? You'd still only choose ONE category, as it would show up in the archives for the main category of that sub cat... so if you were writing a post about Lemon Chicken for dinner, you'd ONLY categorize it in the Poultry sub cat under Dinner (and not under dinner), and then you'd tag it with "lemon, chicken, poultry, dinner, meals for two, etc" @New Wife - I'm sorry, but I neither use nor recommend blogger/blogspot/free hosted blogs, so I can't recommend... I didn't even know that you could install widgets on them to be honest... New Wife on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3152 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:32:15 +0000 New Wife 3152@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ I'm having a hell of a time to get a tag cloud working for me. Can someone recommend an easy, "just put this here", plug-in/widget for me? I use blogspot.   Ravi Gupta on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3147 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:21:46 +0000 Ravi Gupta 3147@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Lara, sorry, another question .... Creating a new URL for the post if you're using "pretty permalinks" that feature the category in the URL (which you should be doing, by the way, if you're not already). How is this done? Thanks, Ravi Ravi Gupta on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3141 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:12:30 +0000 Ravi Gupta 3141@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ This is GREAT! Thanks everyone A question - Lara, you mentioned "sub-categories" in one of the posts ..... could you please ive an example of how this is different to categories and Tags.  Thanks fredinchina on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-3012 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:16:59 +0000 fredinchina 3012@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @ Lara, just a quick clarification: I have a category named 'China'; I also tag these posts with 'China'; from your comments above, I understand it is not necessary to have both. Can you please confirm? Thanks Fred dailyharold on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-2965 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:31:40 +0000 dailyharold 2965@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @lara Much appreciated. Why didn't I find this site a long time ago. Just in the little time I've been coming here I've learned much more than I thought I already knew from blogging for almost 10 years. larakulpa on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-2942 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:45:29 +0000 larakulpa 2942@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Hehe that's awesome, Harold! I'm glad I could help... :) dailyharold on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-2931 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:06:27 +0000 dailyharold 2931@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @lara Ok cool. Done that. We're all set now. Now to start working on getting visitors and commentors :) Hey I'm #5 search results for my name now out of 1,710,000 out of nowhere. Last time I checked I was like in the thousand rank. :) larakulpa on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-2928 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:55:01 +0000 larakulpa 2928@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ That's fine Harold - the archive.php is the one I knew would be there no matter what. Your theme is set to use that one, and that's fine. Some themes have the others, that's ok too. Just edit the archive.php and you'll fix it globally with category and tag. dailyharold on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-2916 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:30:15 +0000 dailyharold 2916@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ @lara, So I followed your instructions but what's odd. The template I'm using has no category.php or tag.php file. Just the archive.php. It appears when you click on my Tags or Categories you get taken to /archives no matter what. larakulpa on "Categories vs. Tags" http://www.problogger.com/31days/topic.php?id=226&page=2#post-2902 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:06:39 +0000 larakulpa 2902@http://www.problogger.com/31days/ Michael - I say tag more than not. You can always trim it back later on when you're doing what I call "spring cleaning"... should you find that there are some tags that you used over the course of a year only once or twice, you can delete them quite easily. You can also combine tags or change them. But seriously, don't worry about it until you do your annual cleanup. :) Tag clouds really are subjective. I think they're fine if you don't have anything else to put there but can get a bit overwhelming if there's too much going on already. I think the most important place for them is in your posts, as you have them now, so once you find more stuff to put in your sidebar, you can pull them out of there. A good way to check on it is to check the stats... see how many people are clicking on your tag pages. If a lot of people are, there's a good chance they're using the cloud, and you may not want to remove it. I'm glad I could help, really... that's why I love doing what I do!