how many tags and categories to use
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I have read the forum questions but am still unsure of how many tags I should use. I think I’ve used too many. I use only a couple of categories. I read where you should not use same words for tags and categories. I appreciate any feedback.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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more then 10 tags is too much.
Over 10 tags and the tags won’t show up in the global search.
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Hi, dreamsburnred, wow thanks for responding so quickly. Should I go to my posts and delete tags? I don’t understand why I read on the support pages before why more tags means more people could find my blog but does this only apply to search engines VS the global search on WordPress?
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more tags can help more people find you yes, but more then 10 voids the point.
So remove the extra tags.
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/not to dreamsburnred
@dogkisses
More is not better if “more” amounts to irrelevant tags then the result will be worse placement for your blog in the SERPs (search engine results). The internet is full of irrelevant content tags because people behaved like greedy and stupid opportunists.Imagine you are in a library and some lame brained librarian was assigning a huge lot of categories and tags to books that did not accurately reflect their contents. You would be running around in circles trying to locate truly relevant books. The rule of thumb is to assign as few categories and tags as possible that accurately pinpoint the content in the book.
The same rule of thumb ought to apply in the blogosphere.
Setting that aside, if you use more that a combined total of ten (10) categories and tags on your posts they will not be displayed on the wordpress.com global tagging pages. This is because we have previously experienced idiotic spamdexers, who assigned huge blocks of categories and tags to their posts. Not only that but they also used the same irrelevant and misleading blocks of tags and categories on each and every post in their blog.
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Tags and categories are similar:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories-vs-tags/
Categories help you to organize your blog, while tags add extra information your readers may like to read.Yes, delete extra tags and categories. You blog is relatively new so missing search engines links should not hurt too much.
The total of tags and categories count toward the maximum number 10 you should use for your posts.
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/number-of-categories-within-theme-contempt-by-vault9?replies=3#post-413164
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/how-many-tags-should-i-use-per-post?replies=9
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/search-results-why-do-my-blogs-not-show-up?replies=15 -
Thank you. I guess I have some deleting to do. I do have one more question. Should I not use the same name for a category and a tag?
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Hi timethief– Thanks. I apologize for being… well, I’ll blame it on brain fog. Your time is much appreciated!
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1. Yes, you shouldn’t use the same word or phrase as both a tag and a category. First, because tags and categories are the same thing actually, and they function in exactly the same way as far as search engines are concerned, so there’s no point duplicating them. Second, if you try to correct the name of such a duplicate it won’t behave, and you also get a problem with permalinks if you use subcategories.
2. There is no official limit. It’s not correct that if you use more than 10 tags plus categories, then your post won’t show up in the global pages: the truth is just that the more tags/categories you use, the less likely it becomes. See staff response here:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/only-9-tags?replies=22#post-339427
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Can’t the OP just start now using tags and cats in the appropriate manner instead of going through all the work of deleting?
Dogkisses, I am asking this because A.) I would hate to have to go back and do all that work. :) and B.) because I also started out and used a lot of tags and cats and used the same word for both..yada, yada…but when I learned the 10 tag rule I just started from that point on using them like I should and I started getting more hits, more comments.
btw nice blog. :) -
Dogkisses has only 34 or so posts, over a few months, so it would not be harmful to go back and correct duplicate tag-categories, and to delete excess tags plus cats…
For someone who has hundreds or thousands of posts over a year or more, well then it would be a foolish exercise. For one thing, it would be a lot of busywork, and for another, search engines may have cataloged many of those posts with the (excess) tags and categories and changing them would leave readers with some 404 not-found messages.
I don’t think wordpress global tags are retroactive either, so even going back a few months with only a small number of posts may not help in terms of seo. Might be useful for your own organization of your blog structure, though.
Also, as Panos pointed out, the 10 or 12 tag/cat limit number is a guideline for how likely one is to be included or not in the wordpress global tags. When I first started blogging here, there was no official guideline, then it was defined , eventually as 12 and now as perhaps 10… I guess folk like rules and laws to be specific.
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Hey, thanks for all the good info! It’s too late not to delete. I did it on some of my favorite articles too. I hope they do not all get the 404 error. lol, I may have a new blog but some of my articles are dear to me and you see, I want people to reach and read them.
Even at only 34 posts, too much deleting but good to organize categories.
bats0711 yep, those 404s are no fun. Maybe this will not happen to the ones I did delete tags and cats for. I’m kind of crossing my fingers. -
I opened my blog 14 days ago but the “extra tag” post still does not appear in the global search, while other posts are displayed correctly
The post in question complies with the rules of WordPress.com
http://en.support.wordpress.com/global-tags/
How many days are needed before the Post once again becoming visible?
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Posts are displayed under category/tags in order in accord with the original date/timestamp. This was implemented as we had some members who were into continuous editing of their aimed at gaming the system by editing and editing to keep their posts at the top.
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I know, but the problem is that the post, despite the rules now than WordPress, after almost a month still does not appear in the Global Search.
The Blog is recent and has a few articles but if you look in the Global Search find them, but I do not see that to which they were assigned too many tags.
From here the question how much time is required for the post to be reinserted in the global search, you understand now?
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