I was always confused tags and categories. I thought they are the same things. Searching the Internet for an answer and I found out that they are not quite the same. So knowing the difference between them can help you build a better structure for your blog or website; and it can even help you optimize your blog/website for search engine purpose.
What is tag or tagging? – Tag or tagging is usually a single word and typically listed alphabetically. It is like a keyword. People can find your blog/site or other people’s blog/site through tag or tagging. Tag or Tagging can be a category; but not vice versa. See some general ideas about tag or tagging from Technorati Tags.
What is category? – Category is something you create to navigate your own site. It will help your visitors to find your related posts easily. Category is searched locally in your own site while tag or tagging can be used to search your own site or other people’s sites. Category can be more than one word. See my categories on my right side bar.
Tag or Tagging can help optimizing your blog or website for search engines while category can’t. I also learned that it is good practice to use both tags and categories for your blog/website. If you pay attention, you will notice that I use both tags and categories on this blog.
Feel free to leave your feedback if you have anything to say about this topic.
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5 responses so far ↓
Lorelle VanFossen // April 26, 2008 at 1:53 am |
Thanks for the links. I know that understanding this is confusing, and WordPress hasn’t made it easy, especially with their late entry into native tagging, but honestly, most people get it when they think “Categories are Table of Contents. Tags are index words.”
Also, the last article you’ve listed of mine under “possibly related” isn’t a good reference. I recommend Tags and Tagging in WordPress instead, as that covers more than you will ever want to know about tagging, especially when it comes to tags in WordPress. Your recommendations only cover WordPress, not every blogging platform.
You are also doing some odd things with this blog, such as your submit Page links. For coverage, you need to put those links on a Page not let them become the Page themselves. Or even in your sidebar.
I also recommend a series I did on the Blog Herald which began with Blog Post Category Trauma: How To Help Bloggers With Useless Categories, a good introduction into how to create categories that are useful and helpful, and heal from using poorly named categories as well as tags as categories.
Good luck with your blogging. You’re doing some interesting stuff here.
Lanna // April 26, 2008 at 4:58 pm |
Again thanks for your comment! Many times when I search for WordPress.com tips, your site just showed up on the first page of Google searching. I am inspired by your site. So much to learn as a new blogger. Thanks a lot for your kind advice. Try to catch up every day.
Lorelle VanFossen // April 26, 2008 at 10:23 pm |
And my apologies about the “possibly related” thing. I didn’t know this was a new feature of WordPress.com and it really leaves many wanting – and unhappy, as I was with an inappropriate link to an unhelpful post of my own – which would hurt your readers. I see that you have turned off the feature. Good for you. Hopefully, enough people will complain so they will change it to only link to blogs of our choosing, starting with our own trusted content.
Good luck and thank you for the kind words.
Lorelle VanFossen // April 26, 2008 at 10:24 pm |
Oh, and good luck changing your post categories to something more useful to your readers than your blog post titles.
Lanna // April 26, 2008 at 10:59 pm |
Thank you for visiting my site. In the future you’ll see me stumbling a lot on your websites. Thank you for providing such informative sites for your readers!