I know that one way people can use to find your blog is the worddpress.com ‘tags’ page. I know another related aide is to locating bloggers blogging on similar topics is the ‘tag surfer’ found on my dashboard.
Regardless of which search engine or search techinque is used two points seem clear
(1) tags are not categories and
(2) finding your blog is completely dependent on what you choose to do to create tags and categories that leave a breadcrumb trail leading to your blog.
IMO many bloggers, myself included, can become caught up in the dicotomy of diary versus web log confusion when developing category and sub categories. Diaries are for secret thoughts and web logs are for sharing. So I’ve been asking myself: How would I find my own blog posts if I didn’t already know where they existed?
I know it’s really in my best interest to develop descriptive category and sub-category headings to assist people to find your blog posts, rather than using terms that make sense only to me. However, bloggers don’t seem to be operating from the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal System subject headings and I’ve yet to locate a lexicon of universally recognized subject headings (categories and sub categories).
Following the development of a string of forum threads on the subject of ideas for promoting your blog, drmike created a blog for newbies with blogging tips in it.
Another blogger has said: “The proliferation of categories (if they’re mistakenly used instead of tags) will create a fiasco of a sidebar navigation panel with so many, finely grained, or insubstantial categories that it is of no use to a reader. On the level of meta-data, tags are supposed to offer another angle of approach to finding something on the web. If there are too many tags then a tag-cloud becomes so large and the elements of it so specific that they offer very little guidance to the desired content. User defined tags and content provider defined tags can result in very different pictures of content and the inter-relationships in within it.”
I’m always interested in what wank has to say therefore I read her comment in lorelle’s post I referred to above where she states: “The wordpress.com decision to make categories double up as tags was just a way of jumping on the tagging bandwagon without actually bothering to construct a proper architecture for it. It’s a lazy implementation which now cannot be rectified without causing an even bigger mess.”
I have just passed my 5th month anniversary as a blogger and I don’t feel at all confident that I’m using key words, tags, categories, and sub categories effectively. I keep looking for a standard and not finding one. I want to be and effective blogger but I’m lost in a tag cloud. Hopefully some beloved geeks will read my blog post and leave helpful comments. I’m longing to see the light shine on this shadowy topic. 
Much to my amusement, because I had just finished polishing this blog post, drmike announced his intention to write on the same subject here.
Tags: blogging, blogging confusion, categories, key words, search engines, sub categories, tags, WordPress
Actually, the tags do not help your blog to get found. That’s a great myth. You can tag your site to death and still not be found.
When was the last time you HONESTLY went searching for information and thought first “Hey, I’ll check a tag list first”? You hit up a search engine, didn’t you?
Search engines are still the number one method (in addition to word of mouth) to get your blog found. Tag services now use search engine techniques which collect keywords as well as tags so when you search a tag service or directory like Technorati, you are searching a database of your web pages’ content not a database collection of only the tag words on your blog. They aren’t much different than search engines now.
If someone is using WordPress.com’s tag list to prowl for sites, then yes, posts you write with those tags listed as categories are found, but there is a problem with this. Tags used within post content aren’t collected by WordPress.com for use in such directories. Only tags used as categories are included. So if you write about Fashion and include a tag in your post content to “fashion” but you don’t have a category in your sidebar for “fashion” then you won’t get that post in the “fashion” tag in the WordPress.com Tag list. Not until WordPress.com recognizes tags as tags and categories as categories. Right now, it isn’t a Tag list but a Category list you see.
A lot of energy and enthusiasm has gone into tags this past year. It’s ended up being a lot of glorified nothing. A tag has become a keyword and carries little or no weight in helping you get found, except by services like WordPress.com Tags. And tags from your site to Technorati, WordPress.com’s tag list, and offsite content only encourage people to leave your site. That does you no favors. Those who leave aren’t going to come back and say thank you.
To get found, write focused and consistent content with good keywords used in appropriate keyword spots like titles and headings and focus on what you have to offer when you are found. Let tags take care of themselves.
@lorelle,
I read your comment it three times and I felt quite relieved to know that the “tags” subject is confusing and that I wasn’t just making it so in my own mind because I’m new to blogging. Then, I decided to make made some additions to my sidebar categories as I now that I understand that the WordPress tag list is actually a category list. Also, as there are very few posts in this blog, I thought what the heck and went back and added categories to the posts where applicable. From here on out I’m going to take your advice to focus on keywords in headings and titles and, I’m going to add categories as required. Right now I’m saluting you with a glass of wine lorelle. Thanks for caring enough to to explain this cloudy subject to me, I appreciate it.
Heya, your link to pimpmyblog is broken.
My technique for tags vs categories is having 20 or so generate categories that I always try and fit posts into… and the rest are all options.
Then in my sidebar I only mention those top categories.
If you make your category names very unique then they’ll be the only ones on the WordPress.com tag pages.
Thanks for the heads up on the broken link. I’ve fixed it now.
I’m thinking of doing a complete renovation of my categories on my environmental blog. The category and sub-category thing just isn’t working well for me. I think I’d prefer just do go with a fixed number of alphabetized categories and force a fit. Gee I guess there are even times when small non-tech minds think like great geek minds do, eh? *lol* Anyway as everything posted in that blog is on the environment this may not require to much “forcing” at all. It will just take a lot of time and mucking about.
I’m also peeved to find that although they are not giving me links certain people in the blogging community are definitely cheery picking from my enviro bulletin board style blog and linking only to the original sources I use as though I didn’t dig it up for them. (I can tell by the dates and times that I’m posting first.) It’s a piss-off because I spend hours locating information from a multitude of sources that do not have rss feeds. I suppose I’ll just have to “live with it,” while reminding myself that I wasn’t in this for the links anyway. (It sure is easy to get caught up in the stat counting and link watching thing, isn’t it?)
Thanks for dropping by, your comment has given me the confidence I need take on the category “reno” and now all I’ve got to do is to steal some more time away from making a living to do it.
P.S. It was obvious to me that your cat has both the size and presence of a big “sir” and not a kitten. We have two adopted feral cats. One is definitely a big “mama” (35 lbs.) who religiously guards two food dishes that we only fill twice daily. The other is a slip of a thing (8 lbs.) who’s primarily a rodent hunter.
I have two as well, and it’s funny how it always works out that there’s one fat one who steals all the food and one skinny one who never has to worry about watching her weight.
TAGS!!
CATEGORIES!!!
I have only had my blog a couple of months and already I am swamped by keywords. May mother nature save me from my category sinning by blowing up my laptop!!
*lol* I’m 5 1/2 months into environmental blogging and my sidebar looks like a junk heap. As you have heard on the forum I’m trying to find the time to clean it up and renovate it but that’s proving to be very difficult.
5 months I dread. 9 months and my blog will be giving birth to Roget’s Thesaurus.
YAHOO! Remember that you are on a cyber ride and that blogging is addictive. Never ever forget my dear (boy? girl?) that we blog for pleasure and don’t let any tendency to get hung up on details rob you of your joy, okay?
I guess some would find it addictive. Yes I was a little at first but I have calmed down now. Although alot of that was due to the many gaming conferences in September, so there was a lot of news about to post. Things are calming down a bit now thankfully.
I had one post which got around 2000 views over about a week. Quite astonishing. Now that its really old news I am still getting some visits on that post per day but the blog has got back down to normal figures. It peaked then slumped. LOL
I was having the same difficulty understanding the differences between “categories” and “tags.”
I found that the instructions at WordPress were not entirely helpful, they said, “One of the things people love most about WordPress.com is how easy it is to categorize and tag your posts. (IF you don’t know the diference between a category and a tag, don’t worry about it, they’re pretty much the same.)”
I’ve concluded that that is not true. It is pretty clear to me that categories are useful navigation tools for the browser. I’ve been cautious about adding too many. I think they should represent the primary themes for the site.
I found that since I’ve been trying to use Ecto to compose blogs entries, the tags and categories are handled differently. Categories appear in the sidebar. The tags are listed as “Technorati Tags” and are listed in the body of the posting. This seems to make sense, and could be helpful for folks looking for material that is related to my posted article. I wrote a bit more on the subject here…
http://howesound.wordpress.com/2006/11/30/blog-features-learned-using-ecto/
Thanks Robert. I visited your blog and read the entry in question. You can imagine my surprise on arriving and finding no sidebar contents, no archives and no categories. I’m assuming it’s a blog that’s under construction. I also use an off line editor. Blogdesk and it has a built-in technorati tag generator. As you are a gulf islander you might also be interested in visiting this link http://trustislands.wordpress.com
Hi timethief, thanks for dropping by. It is interesting to me that even a prolific wordpress blogger like yourself didn’t find the sidebar. The link from this thread that I provided (above) was directly to the entry that addressed the issue of this thread. So, all you saw was that article in a single column.
To go to the top of the blog and see the navigation features – including the sidebar – you’d have to click on blue title of the blog up in the header: “Salish Sea.” If you had done that, you would have discovered that “Trust Islands” and “Stolen Moments” are both on my Blogroll.
In choosing this theme, I assumed that since this is a major wordpress offering, all bloggers would know the culture, and would automatically use the navigation features. I am new to this, and perhaps I should consider another theme. Too bad, I’ve become rather fond of this one. Something to think about.
@Robert,
I came back and the sidebar was there of course. Pardon me for being dull witted and forgetting what I once knew about this Sapphire theme not displaying the sidebar on all posts and pages. My only excuse is that there have been just to many studio/office parties lately. If you are into a change of theme I would suggest K2 Lite. And, I would be pleased to add your blog to both of my blogrolls.
Great advice! I was finding the dark side panels of Sapphire gloomy and the serif type was fussy. As a result of your recommendation, I am trying K2 Lite. It seems to retain the things I found useful in Sapphire. I think the navigation is easier and more intuitive. I find that K2 is brighter, cleaner, and seems to look better with the sea-and-mountain theme of a Salish Sea blog.
Possibly I was seduced by the reference to Sapphire having an Apple appearance. It also had lots of attractive toys that I wanted to explore (so does K2). Speaking of the reference to Apple… I find that Safari cannot show many of the features of WordPress. For editing a blog, it seems that I have to use Firefox. I’m glad I have both.
Many thanks!
[...] Help I’m lost in a tag cloud (Bloggersblurt) [...]