Wordpress Tags? use them or not?

Manu B

Manu B

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Hi, I am bit confused on tags.

There's lot of contradictory information on wordpress tags on the internet. So, I am bit confused on how to use them properly.

Many experts says avoid tags, many says use them. As per my experience, many times I see Google ranking my Tag pages higher than the main post page. But, then I am concerned about tags pages creating thin content which could be determinant to website ranking high on G.

So, I want to know from the peers in BHW on the best practices on using tags.
  • Shall I use wordpress tags for my blogposts?
  • How many tags per post is optimum
  • Shall I no index the individual tag pages or keep them Index?
  • Please impart more knowledge on best practices for using tags.

    Thanks
 
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Do not use them, not worth the hassle. Thin, duplicate content issues, very little value. At the very least, use a plugin so they are not indexed by Google, like Yoast.
 
Using tags on our WP sites helps us organize posts and find posts when searching specific topics. We use 2 or 3 tags per post but they are always relevant. Analytics shows that there are some visitors who use the tags to pursue their thematic searches on our sites so we continue.

For us, any asset that can be used to help a user find relevant information is important. The challenge is to ensure clarity and not try and use tags that are on the fringe of being relevant.
 
They are nothing special, just another form of auto-generated pages. If you manage them in a good way, they can be good for ranking some low volume keywords (or even better if you add original content to them), but at the same time they can come out as duplicate content.
 
PersistentKiwi said:
They are nothing special, just another form of auto-generated pages. If you manage them in a good way, they can be good for ranking some low volume keywords (or even better if you add original content to them), but at the same time they can come out as duplicate content.
Click to expand...


Thanks for your contribution buddy. Could you help with tips on how to manage tag pages? Adding unique content to hundreds or thousands of tag pages would be almost impossible. Do you have any solution to this?
 
Don't use the tag you get the duplicate content issue
 
I wouldn't use them, and I would no index them if I did.
 
don't use tags if you want to tag just one post. ideally you want to tag at least 3posts or more. You will also have to set canonicals so that you don't suffer from duplicate content issues.
 
bobojonathan said:
Thanks for your contribution buddy. Could you help with tips on how to manage tag pages? Adding unique content to hundreds or thousands of tag pages would be almost impossible. Do you have any solution to this?
Click to expand...
Thousands of tags? That sounds like you are over-using them. How many posts there are in each tag? Tags with 1-3 are useless when you have thousands of them, in that case, don't index them or don't worry if you have other tags optimized.
You're right that you cannot add original content to hundreds or thousands of tags. But at that point, you should have way more posts, so I wouldn't worry about that. If you want, you can try adding automated text (or spintax) but at that point maybe is better to use fewer tags or not index them.
 
michaelgof said:
don't use tags if you want to tag just one post. ideally you want to tag at least 3posts or more. You will also have to set canonicals so that you don't suffer from duplicate content issues.
Click to expand...
This. Tags are useless automatic content if they have a few posts. They don't contribute anything good to your site in that case.
 
I'm well acquainted with Wordpress. I have no problem using plugins or themes, as well as code modification.
 
Tags induce keyword cannibalization and too much of that can invite Google to hammer your website. I've got the same experience a couple of years back. It was one of my client's local business website.
 
I love tags when I surf on others news websites, so with the user in mind, use them 2-3 tags on posts .. Easy to find more relevant articles with tags as a user.
 
Using tags on our WP sites helps us organize posts and find posts when searching specific topics. We use 2 or 3 tags per post but they are always relevant. Analytics shows that there are some visitors who use the tags to pursue their thematic searches on our sites so we continue.

For us, any asset that can be used to help a user find relevant information is important. The challenge is to ensure clarity and not try and use tags that are on the fringe of being relevant.
 
  • It's up to you
  • it depends on how many articles/products you have (1-5 is usually an optimal number)
  • I'd noindex only if it contains less than 5 posts
  • Tags are great for creating more landing pages for low-volume keywords and easing user navigation. If you manage them well, you will see a boost in traffic driven from those low-volume keywords. The key thing is to manage them properly, setting noindex to those that contain low number of posts. An automatic tag creation will most definitely become a huge mess.
 
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