Related Tag Surfer
Got a ton of good feedback from the related posts test, and thanks to that I’d like to introduce the Tag Surfer. Basically this takes the functionality of the related posts page, but gives you infinitely more control over what types of content you’re getting. The feature has also been renamed to “Tag Surfer” to give you a better idea of what’s going on.
Related posts would look at the tags you use and then grab posts based on that. Depending on your tag usage, it was either great or awful. If you tend to use tags like “music” or “life” that are very high volume and not too specific, your page was probably constantly scrolling with new, semi-random content.
The first thing you’ll notice about this new iteration of the related posts / tag surfer is that there is a list of your subscribed tags in the left-hand column. This is auto-populated from you tags the first time you view the page, but after that you have complete control. You can add tags that you’re interested in, or click the “X” next to any tag to remove it from your tag subscriptions.
Next the posts area on the right has a few minor improvements. The typography has been improved to make it a bit easier to read, and under the tags the ones that match your subscriptions are in bold, so you can easily see why a post is included on the related posts page. Finally if you happen to come across any spam or questionable content, there is a handy link to report it by each post.
Now when you see something you’re not at all interested in, you can see which tag brought it in and prune that tag from your subscriptions in the left-hand column. We also fixed a ton of reported bugs, but if you find any more simply use the feedback form at the top of your dashboard.
You can find the Tag Surfer under your Dashboard.
- August 13, 2006
- Community, New Features, WordPress.com
WordPress.com News 
Awesome, makes it much more useable, thanks.
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Great stuff, thank you!
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Yep, I also think this is much more usable. Keep up good work ;-).
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Really cool. 😀
Thank you, sir 😉
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The tag surfer is a huge improvement. I’ll be using that. Would it be possible to have the output available as an RSS feed too? I’d be interested in putting the headlines in a widget for my readers.
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This is a great improvement on the related posts concept. I’ve already noticed more relevant posts. Great job as always!
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Great job! Looks great!
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I love it! Found a lot of new interesting stuff out there immediately!
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Great stuff.. thnx guys.. 😉
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this is great functionality, but it looks awful on firefow 😦
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Very nice stuff. Thanks a lot!
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Great work, thanks guys!
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wonderful! now i can easily find other posts similar to my interests.
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Very nice improvement over the Related Posts thingamajig. To put it simply, I
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It’s very interesting to see you guys tweaking this new feature to make it work. One thing that’s really terrific about WordPress is the transparency of the people who’re putting it together and the conversations they host about what they’re up to. As for the related tag surfer (which sounds like the thing you can do on Amazon where they let you pinpoint the sorts of books you like and probably has a real name, although I’m such a non-tech person I wouldn’t know it!), I’m impressed you’ve thought to give us a tool to find like-minded blogs. This is the sort of thing that adds immeasurably to the creation of a community — and that community is the signal achievement of WordPress. Thanks for working so hard on these kinds of things.
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That’s a great feature. As always, thank you!
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good work , thanks
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Guys, the tag idea is great…. so much of an improvement on the earlier related post beta… the choice this gives to choose tags makes all the difference… good work … thanks
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Wow! This is much better! 😛
This is such a cool idea. It takes the wordpress.com community to the next level.
The use of tag filters is absolutely brilliant. I instantly found some very interesting blogs, that I probably would have otherwise never heard of.
The icing on the cake, is the ability to add tags. This is actually sort of like a feed reader within wordpress.com itself, but with the ability to actually find blogs based upon tags.
I notice that by default all of my tags are there. This makes it very easy to find what others are writing about based upon similar tags, tastes, and interests.
Pure genius!!!!
Great work! 😎
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I noticed it this morning and spent time looking at a few posts. Love this stuff. Here are a few suggestions.
1. Can we get this relative posts as an RSS feed? (I know I can individually subscribe to each tag)
2. Can we add a simple tag search to the interface and add some of the new tags to our list? This will help us track others that we do not blog about.
3. A tag cloud would be good. Will help us know what is happening in the wordpress community.
You guys are simply wonderful. I have not seen another company that responds so fast to users requests.
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Excellent. “Tag Surfer” is way better than “related posts”, which I didn’t like at all.
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I love this feature. Great work. Thanks.
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I wrote a very lengthy comment praising the tag surfer changes to the sky on a forum post in this thread below but the comment disappeared. http://wordpress.com/forums/topic.php?id=3369&replies=23#post-21883
I’m wondering if that’s because you would have preferred to have me post it here which is what I came here to do to copy and paste it from the forum. But I can’t do that now because the text is gone from the forum. Well, I meant every word I said so I hope you will post it here [she said while scratching her head].
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I BIG improvement on the related posts test.
I will properly explore it later, but it appears to have good potential.
Nice addition 🙂
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On my blog I tend to use tags based on an Eastern philopsophy-Pagan-New Ager lexicon, and not too many people blog on Paganism and New Ageism. It’ll be nice to find other blogs and comment on them, too.
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Content is much more targeted, thank you!
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Yes! This is a great feature…very usable!
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I wrote about this in the forums, but I guess I can repeat it here. I think this is a great addition to the already impressive range of things availible here. But if I could just make one suggestion…
Could you enable the user to select the language that the searched posts are written in? For instance, I write a lot about politics. In Swedish the word for ‘politics’ (and the tag) is ‘Politik’. Unfortunately the word ‘Politik’ exists in german, danish, norwegian, dutch and a whole other group of languages as well – which means I don’t see relevant posts for that tag in a relevant language.
Thank you!
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I like it. However, the Science tag has little value as people seem to use it somewhat randomly. I can remove other tags by clicking the X, but I can’t seem to remove the Science tag this way – ???
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i am not too bright — but i think i get it —- thanks
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Cool. Thanks.
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This expanded the “related” feature from something that was kind of interesting, into something that is a very useful tool.
It is impressive how you took your users feedback and turned it into such a usable feature so quickly.
Already found some great new blogs that I would have never found by just using the “next blog” or “tags” features 🙂
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One prob: if you run multiple blogs it uses ALL of your tags, instead of the tags for the blog whose dashboard you are viewing it from.
It kind of makes more sense that it would do the initial population from the blog you are viewing, not from the user account, no?
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Wonderful, much better now.
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great job!
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great work!
Thank you.
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just a note:
ù
if you add a tag to surf, the system will add A CATEGORY to my blog. So if I want to surf for 30-40 tag, the result is a lot of caos in my categories !
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great work! only one thing: imo posts should be sorted by date. I don’t like that a post written 6 months ago appears before one written today! thank you!
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Thanks a lot for this fantastic feature… I have been playing around with this feature and found that one of the tags are assigned by default (like Videos) and you could add more tags as you wish but you cannot remove the original tag (Videos). It just doesnt remove them. I don’t know how the default tags are assigned but it would be good if we could control which tags we want and not want…
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The ‘My Comments’ section is GREAT! You guys are smokin!!! Keep up the great work!
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Nice feature. Thanks!
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These are some really awesome things you have put out today. WordPress is really cool.
Here’s one feature you should have, though, on the Tag Surfer: could you make it so you can “x out” of the posts you don’t want, in the same way you can “x out” of the tags you don’t want? That way, I wouldn’t have to scroll down the page and find a post all over again every time I wanted to see it.
You guys are awesome. I can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with next.
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I like the idea, but the results don’t seem to work for me. Unrelated, stuff in Spanish, and lots of food pictures??
Clicking on the ‘x’s beside the tabs doesn’t seem to change results.
Didn’t make me want to visit any blogs, but did make me want to go visit the fridge.
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Ignore my previous post, there. I just figured out that if I just delete a bunch of my tags, I can make my results much more focused & relevant.
I can avoid the fridge.
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Okay, and one suggestion…
It’d be cool to be able to click on the tab name, and see displayed only the posts relevant to that tag.
Only way to do that now, that I can see, is to delete all the other tags. Kind of a pain if you do want ’em.
That’d be a really useful addition for me.
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i realy like this….
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Tag Surfer works! Well it might work better for less fussy surfers. I entered ‘Bovine accordion teachers’, and ‘Big boobed rat faced librarians’ – nothing. No-one out there even interested in ‘endophytes’. Oh well.
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Apparently my default tag is “photos” — imagine how long it takes to see this page on dialup! I would love to get rid of that tag but x-ing it accomplishes nothing.
However, I have been able to add and remove other tags, and I think this is a promising feature.
Like others have commented, it would be nice to click on a tag and get only posts with that tag, and it would be nice if the results were posted in chronological order.
In addition, it would be nice to be able to set the number of results displayed, particularly for us dialup folks.
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I have a problem with the “photos” tag as well. I try to X it out and it doesn’t change the results or disappear from my subscribed tags. I can delete other ones, but not this one. It’s a very general tag so I’m not interested in seeing it, but it won’t delete. What’s up with that?
Once it’s working properly, this seems like it will be an awesome feature. Thanks!
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This is great. I love it! Thank you.
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Great again. I think this would be more useful than related posts… thats for the innovative moves….
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Great work indeed guys!
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love it!! surfing just got a lil easier! 🙂
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One flaw with this feature is that some blogs tend to post a whole lot, while other blogs tend not to post quite as often. I am interested in posts tagged “China”, for example. At the time of writing there are 38 posts total on the Tag Surfer page related to China, and 30 of those 38 posts all belong to one blog, chinaview.wordpress.com. It would be great if either WordPress.com would limit the number of posts any one blog can have on the Tag Surfer page to no more than 5, or give users individual control of how many posts they want to see on the Tag Surfer page from any particular blog, ranging from zero to all.
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Yea, the tag surfer changes evrything!
Neath
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Tag surfer is great.
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Sebuah kerja yang baik dan memuaskan,(Nice work.thank)
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looks great to me too … but still to do the real hardcore tresting
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First: Tagsurfer is great. Second: What about a feature which filters out certain tags, kinda blacklisting-feature?
For instance i want to see all the Science tags but not Science postings which also have a Faith or Religion tag.
Pretty please? 🙂
Keep going! Great job!
Alex.
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how do i apply tags to my blogs, so that people who want to read the topics, which i write can be seen by them?
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ayos! thanks a lot.
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Ok…now I know how this work =) Thanks!
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Yippee!
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Well..it works =:) Thanks & Nice Regards.
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Cool tips, tag surfer is perfect utilisable
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Brilliant !!
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Is there a way to ‘tag’ your own site so people can ‘tag’ yours?
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oh wow!!
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Great!
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This is a great feature.. I can really see what others in my area are talking about and add my two cents too.. GREAT JOB!!
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Is there a reason that tag surfer routinely brings up posts that are weeks, months, or even years old? Is this intentional?
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AWESOME, this should help.
THANKS
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yeah… gr8..
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Thanks for Tag option.
WordRider
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That is very good
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need to try this Tag thingy 🙂
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I love the function but it needs a bit more randomness in authors. I see the same peoples posts day in and day out in the “news” tag. Also tags like Rick Perry (gov of Texas) has only one hit. I know of at least 5 wordpress.com blogs that tag Rick Perry freduently.
/Note to self….quit yer gripin the dang function is “free”. Be grateful.
/Note to self..self… OK 🙂
Thanx for your work Matt
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Non ho ancora capito bene a cosa serve questo “Tag Surfer”…
qualcuno può spiegarmelo in italiano… grazie mille!!
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Thanks for making WordPress so great to use!
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excellence function … 🙂
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WordPress is Great!
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I think the tag surfer is great, and use it daily.
One suggestion I would have is have a way to sort or limit it by date. Sometimes I will be scrolling through it and come across a series of posts from 8 or 9 months ago and stop, not realizing that there are posts from 8 or 9 hours ago after those.
But thanks, and keep up the good work!
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Nice!
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Keep IT UP!!!!
Very Nice
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thanx guys it is great
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I think this is a great idea. I am new to the whole blogger thing and all the features you have on this blogger site are cool. thanks.
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🙂
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The function is a great idea. However, it should be possible to block posts from certain blogs from the tag surfer.
Here is my problem:
I have tagged e.g. “Australien” (Australia in Danish) as well as other themes in which I am interested in reading about in Danish.
Here is what happens: Posts from a hyperactive, hateful Danish anti-Islam blog, which also has the tag “Australia”, appear all the way down in my right-hand column pushing almost all other posts out.
Hate-blogs do not interest me at all – whatsoever the subject, so as a result my tag surfer is dead unless I remove “Australien” and other Danish tag words which also appear in “Hodja’s” impressing variety of Danish tag words.
So in my case, the tag surfer is useless unless I can block posts from that particular blog.
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Anne, we’re definitely going to add a blocking feature, keep your eyes on the WP.com blog for an announcement.
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That would definitely be cool; my tag surfer is plagued by entries from one particular blog from months or years ago interspersed among the standard recent entries from other bloggers.
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Matt@
I’ve had a similar problem to Anne’s above and am glad to hear there will be a screening feature.
Would you also consider the following as a feature? If I had a summary “teaser” I could readily make the choice “I’m interested'” and become a hit statistic on my friend’s blog in a single click. And long blog posts I may not really be interested in wouldn’t take up the whole screen.
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Sounds great 😀
I am looking forward.
Timethief’s suggestion sounds like a great idea too.
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