Wordpress Tags: How important do you see them with regards to SEO?

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ScreamingMidget

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I'm trying to get to grips with the correct way of using Tags, and the way I see it is that it's like the index of a book and are mainly used for the visitor to navigate your site. So they read an article, see tags relating to that article, click a tag and see things related to what they've just read.

I'm far from an expert in this field, so I'm after a bit of advice on the best practice. Do you think they make much difference in terms of ranking on the search engines? Is there a maximum number, you'd recommend using on each page/post?
 
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I'm no SEO expert but i remember reading that you shouldn't use tags to avoid over optimization.
 
From my experience avoid using tags completely.

If search engines can't identify what your website/blog/posts are about from the incoming links and content on the site, you are doing something completely wrong.
 
Tags are good for your onsite SEO. Tag pages are not really high ranked in the SERPs, but it happens.
Also, it's good to disable the indexing of the tag and archive pages, so you can avoid duplicate content, since the search engines are already indexing your category pages.
 
I don't have a problem with tags. I'm pretty sure Google doesn't either. I don't think they have a huge impact, but I'm pretty sure you won't get penalised for using them.
 
b0r15 said:
Tags are good for your onsite SEO. Tag pages are not really high ranked in the SERPs, but it happens.
Also, it's good to disable the indexing of the tag and archive pages, so you can avoid duplicate content, since the search engines are already indexing your category pages.
Click to expand...

I remember reading that Google don't penalise if it's on the same website - they simply look at the most recent copy and decide which is the best of the 2 to show.
 
Treeofl1 said:
I don't have a problem with tags. I'm pretty sure Google doesn't either. I don't think they have a huge impact, but I'm pretty sure you won't get penalised for using them.
Click to expand...

The way I see it, is that they should be used with the visitor in mind. So anything that groups together 5+ pages as they all relate to that tag, I can see as being beneficial. If you had the tag 'red and white widgets', but you were only ever going to have 1 post that could possibly relate to that, then the tag would be pointless.
 
The keywords and variations from them are in your text, your headings, titles, in your images, on the links pointing to your site, on the text on the sites that are pointing to your site... There is no reason for me to add them from my experience.

Stuffing tags on all your posts thinking they will make the difference to rank your site is counterproductive. Even using just a couple of them is pointless if you already included them appropriately on the content.
 
Heatz said:
Even using just a couple of them is pointless if you already included them appropriately on the content.
Click to expand...

But what if those tags nicely grouped together a dozen posts that all relate to each other? This does go away from SEO, but it still gives the tag a benefit, unless you already have taxonomies in your theme.
 
I generally use a {long tailed KW|related KW|spelling variation of the KW} that is related to the main KW on the page in my tags... sometimes I'll use the exact KW but that is pretty rare.

That gives Google one more thing to recognize on my sites and my tag pages do rank in the search as well.
 
Test it out man.

Split test it by creating two similar websites, same niche, same backlink profile and quality text, different servers and ip.

If in a month or two you see an improvement on one over the other, follow that method. I'm just sharing what has worked for me, but you should test all that is shared here by yourself and trust that over what has worked for other people.
 
I have seen Tags Ranking few time when i Normally search on google for XYZ Reason...

But Certainly Catagories are good. I have a blog where Catagory is ranking on Top in Google.
 
BassTrackerBoats said:
I generally use a {long tailed KW|related KW|spelling variation of the KW} that is related to the main KW on the page in my tags... sometimes I'll use the exact KW but that is pretty rare.

That gives Google one more thing to recognize on my sites and my tag pages do rank in the search as well.
Click to expand...

But if you've not used those misspellings at all in the body of your content, and only in a tag, you'd think Google would frown upon it. Especially as Google already show the correct spelling in the Google listing (most of the time).
 
ScreamingMidget said:
But if you've not used those misspellings at all in the body of your content, and only in a tag, you'd think Google would frown upon it. Especially as Google already show the correct spelling in the Google listing (most of the time).
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Google surely knows the correct spelling; no doubt about it. But it is natural for people to misspell some of the tougher or more complicated words and that is why I put them in there. I do not load a bunch of misspelled words in there but when it comes to a harder KW or something that I know gets misspelled on occasion I add that in.
 
Don't keyword stuff with them and use them with the idea of simple crawlability in mind. If you want to be special, noindex the tag pages. I do.... sometimes.

Sometimes I keep tag pages indexed and add a few hundred words of unique content to the top of them - OR - turn them into landing pages in their own right (with links to the posts below still of course.)

Either way, not using them is purposefully limiting a crawlability tool you have available to you and that would be a mistake.
 
Be very careful with overusing tags, it can generate lots of duplicate content issue and also if not used properly it can compete with other tags in your google rankings.
 
I use only one tag per post. I keep them indexed in G. I optimized my tags pages so it won't generate duplicate content. My categories are for G, my tags are for my visitors.
 
yoast tags.png
Not sure what tags you mean, but these are the yoast settings you want for best results.
 
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