Do wordpress "tags" improve SEO for my website?

hi all,
I think the title says it all! I want to know what use "tags" are in wordpress and whether they will improve my website seo. In two minds as to whether to bother with them or not. What do other people do with them?
Thanks in advance for answering,
Ian

 

There seems to be mixed views with wordpress tags. There are a few places that suggest not using them, and blocking tags pages from search engines using htaccess. The main fear here is that tags pages have little original content, and are links to pages that can be linked better through categories etc. In my experience I have had trouble getting Google to index tags pages properly.

However, on the flip side, I have found tags are useful for users wanting to read posts about one subject. They are good for me to see what posts I have created in what subjects over time. Also, I think, overall they have some SEO benfits, because they are in effect strong internal links with good anchor text.

Overall I think you should use them sparingly and persist with them, but it is up to you.

 

They work for me, tags are very effective on my WP blog.

 

yes, I believe tags do help with seo

 

If we use tags then what the use of category on wordpress blog. Or should we use the same tags that we take in category? I see that tag pages are even indexed soon than category pages. So can anybody explain about it?

 

I don't really bother too much with tags. I focus more on organizing content with categories.

 

With some plugins you can set up for SE's not to be able to index the tags and categories which I agree with.

HOWEVER, for SEO, site user purposes, and for nice common sense link structures, you CAN change how the category or tag 'expresses' itself, and you can do this within WP and no plugin:

For example:
URL: dumbass[dot]com
category: changed in WP settings to read "jokes" instead of category or you might just change to "subjects" like on my son's WP site http://robertmineo.com/ - whatever works best for you, your site, visitors, etc. to be able to "KW" find you easier ... maybe your category base changes to "cityname" because all of your stuff is geographically indicative ...
tag: whatever you want, personally, I like "topic" versus "tag"

SO, that you would end up with an article in your site that might get found by www[dot]dumbass[com]/jokes/dumbass-joke-I-read-today[dot]html for example ...

I have in fact done this on local sites and it has worked nicely.

Hope that made sense ... where's my medicine?

Good Luck and Safe Surfing!
®
Rob

 

HI guys,
Thanks for answering. Looks like Im gonna keep my tags. Though I dont think ill bother with a tag cloud cos it takes up half my sidebar!

Cheers
Ian

http://manchesterpsychotherapy.net

 

yeah tag is very important for seo point of view..so use tag

 

Could you maybe expound on that a little bit for clarity?

 

I find better results using tags, but I know that I use them rather effectively and smart, if you act spammy in any way, its possible algorithms or manual auditors will find them...

 

I use tags primarily for visitors to find posts that also cover the topic, which may not be in the same category they are reading. Had not considered Google using them for anything, but then what do I know

 

They also have a lot of other uses, like organizing types of content, displaying user's interest related stuff etc.

 

I stopped using it.

 

Tags do not help you with SEO. Their purpose is for usability. They create duplicate content. It's REALLY bad if you're using a theme that shows the entire post on the category, archives, and tags pages.

That being said, there is generally no problem using them IF you add <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> to your tags pages assuming you don't go crazy with your tag clouds. Remember... how much link juice gets passed to other pages on your blog depends on how many outbound links a page has. So every link you add to a page detracts slightly from the amount of juiced passed out.

Since tag clouds generally have LOTS of words/phrases (50, 100, sometimes several hundred) and since the tag cloud often appears as a sidebar widget on every page of a blog, it can DRASTICALLY dilute the amount of juice you're passing around via your internal links.

I recommend to everyone who has a blog that they NOINDEX not only their tag pages but ALSO their archives. Here are some good SEO tips for configuring WordPress which specifically addresses how to avoid duplicate content due to tags, archives, etc.

 

You can download the plug-ins to optimize the tag, the more easily google crawl.

 

Apparently, tags in wordpress gives your blog visibility to the wordpress tag search and will help your website also visible in other blog searches.
Also, adding tags help your blog categories through labels and add up to your blog relevancy.

 

Definitely, more tags = more keywords that google can pick up from your site.
Just make sure that you only tag blog posts with tags relevant to your niche.

 

Tags really help.. based on my own experienced..

 

thank for info.