Do tags affect your rankings negatively?

[Android Tipster]

I've been meaning to ask this question because I tend to use lots of tags in my articles but I always wonder if by doing so I'm creating duplicate content on my site.

And if they do, would removing tags from all my articles (250+) help improve rankings?


Thanks

 

[MRM94]

Likely no it doesn't hurt you unless you are purely spamming keywords which then can hurt you. However, your hurting yourself by using broad keywords compared to long-term by the sounds of the creating duplicate content, if it is appearing for you that is.

 

[Android Tipster]

Would you expound on this part...

However, your hurting yourself by using broad keywords compared to long-term by the sounds of the creating duplicate content, if it is appearing for you that is.

 

[kumbhak11]

I don't think any moderate use of tags would do any harm. I have a max limit of 3-4 tags per article of 500 words.

 

[rft120]

No it won't hurt your seo. Most tag indices might not be indexed (read ignored) however, but thats completely fine.

Think of tags as a way to better navigate the site. Say your article talks about android, you tag it, making it easier for the user to navigate. In that way you wont be tagging too much or too little.

 

[Android Tipster]

No it won't hurt your seo. Most tag indices might not be indexed (read ignored) however, but thats completely fine.

Think of tags as a way to better navigate the site. Say your article talks about android, you tag it, making it easier for the user to navigate. In that way you wont be tagging too much or too little.

This is what I used to believe until my tags URLs started indexing for the keywords instead of the article URL. For instance I posted an article (about 1600 words) last week, have tried to fetch as G but it still won't index yet it's already indexed for a few tags.

 

[rft120]

I am assuming those tags were already indexed. Fresh crawl and update crawl rates are different in my experience. Make sure your sitemap is always updated and you should be fine. Use search console for crawl alerts.

 

[Android Tipster]

I am assuming those tags were already indexed. Fresh crawl and update crawl rates are different in my experience. Make sure your sitemap is always updated and you should be fine. Use search console for crawl alerts.

would it be a terrible idea to include the main keywords in the tags? I might have done this many times.

 

[rft120]

Yes, it wont be a wise thing to do.

Say your main keywod is "best android productivity apps 2018". First, you should have an article about it. Second, you are much better of by internal linking it from other related articles. In this way your main keyword article will have the right amount of link support for ranking.

In this case, your tags will be something like "android apps" and "productivity apps". Tags are much like categories without the hierarchy bit.

One last thing, you dont have to force exact match anchors. Keep it natural.

 

[Nut-Nights]

Just make sure they are no index, it is that simple.