Popular blogging systems out there all have ways to organize your posts. Aside from date archives, the other two major organization methods are categories and tags.
The category is generally what you would file a post under that fits one theme, like movie reviews under one called "Movies". Tags are for categorizing the post content even further by specifically pointing out topics within topics. For example, on my site I post all Internet-related posts under "Internet", but if I talk about Wordpress in the post I'll tag it with "wordpress". I don't always talk about that subtopic, so it's no use to me to make it a primary category unless I do.
All that being said, I'm curious as to how others organize their blog posts. Do you use both methods or only one? Do you consider either helpful to you and/or your visitors?
I used to be all about using categories and tags, but lately I've been thinking about how useful tags really are to me. How often would someone click on a tag to see what other posts are in that subtopic? Why not just use my search box to look for other posts with "wordpress" in them? Do tags "clutter" up a website?
Also, if you just use categories, do you organize your posts under more than one? If you use a "pretty URL" structure for your blog posts, do the multiple categories clash with that structure at all? I'm considering taking the category out of my permalink structure altogether to minimize this risk for SEO.
All opinions welcome from users of any blogging system. :)
I only use categories, since a. I don’t have that many posts, and b. I’m way too lazy to tag stuff. ^_^
I used tohave all my post unorganized, but I decided that it would be helpful for me and the visitors to search for certain posts :dance: categories :cheer:
I just use categories because I’m too lazy to write tags :dance:
Well, I’m using Expression Engine, and the core version (the free one) doesn’t not have the possibility to tag entries. If it had, I’d use them cause I find themvery useful. As you said, it’s possible to search for wordpress entries within internet…it narrows down the search.
I only use categories, but I am starting to get quite a lot of them. :/
I’ve been using categories to organize my posts and recently, I also started using tags just so that the Wordpress feature will not gather dust. I hope I won’t go overboard since they could be overwhelming to visitors. -_-;
I only use categories. I’ll chalk it up to laziness, because I’m just too lazy to tag posts. :P Also, if I recall correctly, old versions of WP didn’t have the tag feature, and I would never want to go back and take the time to tag all my older posts! I only have 14 categories, and almost all my entries fit in at least one of them; if not, I just stick it in “general.” I don’t want to end up with hundreds of disorganized tags! As for permalinks, I use the date and title format so categories aren’t an issue. :)
You are correct! Before WP had tagging I was using a tag plugin, so it wasn’t too hard of a transition once WP implemented the feature. However, I know exactly what you mean, I have a few hundred posts from years ago that have not been tagged and I probably don’t want to do it either. XD
On my personal blog I only use tags, not too sure why but I just prefer it that way.
On my other site I use both, categories to show what the subject the post belongs within and tags to show the most obvious search words (ie for my themes they are in category ‘themes’ and then tagged things like ‘2 column, white’
I only use categories. :D
I think that tags are useful because then you don’t end up having too many categories for each post. Like you said, it is a good idea to have the categories for more generic topics and then tags for specific ones. Since quite recently I have been using both tags and categories and I think it is much better than just the one :)
The tag/category relationship always confused the hell out of me; I understand it in theory but simply can’t put it into practice. I did realize, though, that I was using my categories as tags since just about forever, so I pretty much stopped using categories.
One thing I don’t like (though I have one, sadly) are tag clouds — they’re more eye candy than useful, most of the time, although they do illuminate what the blogger writes the most about — though in that case, they probably also have a blurb that says what the blog is about. Oh, sweet redundancy.
I started using categories recently, and before that I just had my post all under the “no category” category :P When I started using them, I went back to all my old post to classify them, and it was a pain!
When WP implemented the tags feature I thought it was useless, but I’ve tagged some of my most recent entries. Most of the time I forget about tagging them, or can’t come up with relevant tags that the categories don’t already describe. X_X
I just use categories, I have never used tags & can never think of what tags to use anyway. I can sum up my post in just a simple category, so I can’t figure out what to put in for the tags, so I don’t use them. ;)
I actually really like sites that use tags because I’m more likely to click those than I am to search (which takes an extra step or two and I am lazy) or click categories (which I find are usually a bit broader than what I’m looking for). The reason I haven’t implemented tags on my website is because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself unless ALL of my entries were tagged, and, again, I am too lazy for that. :P
Okay well!
System: WordPress.
URL structure: http://jing-wen.com/year/month/date/blog-title
Organisation: Categories only.
At one point earlier this year, I found myself being overrun with categories, as I’d create new ones for posts that didn’t SPECIFICALLY fit an existing category. When my category list started pushing out my sidebar so that it became longer than the actual page however, it just got too ridiculous, and I went on a major culling spree.
For instance, school and work related posts were merged into “UniWork” as a category involving things I was kind of obliged to go through. Politics, religion, and anything regarding social issues and the like were simply grouped under “politics”, as everything in that genre inevitably leads back to government policy. Anything vaguely relating to celebrities, movies, TV shows, music, books, and the like, became “Media”. And so on, and so forth.
Considering my blogging frequency, I should probably look into implementing tags, or at least customising my search box and the results it throws up…right now, laziness is the only thing standing in my way.
For others, I’d definitely recommend CONCISE categories (e.g. no more than fifteen or twenty, depending on your blogging frequency), an easily accessible search function, and a tag cloud ONLY if they blog in a specific field frequently (e.g. if they blog about online matters often, and refer to Wordpress plugins, or the CMS itself, etc etc, then a larger category of “Online” with tags like “Plugins” and “Wordpress” would be ideal).
I just use categories, and I only have two; Online and Personal.
I don’t really need anything else. I don’t really care about SEO and I don’t blog about much else.
I do categories always… but never considered tags. O_o Definitely something to look into. I do it for my photo gallery, but not for my blog. Might actually start getting into that. ^_^
I’ve only ever used categories. But lately I’ve been considering tags, just for the purpose you stated. I’m about to go through many of my old posts and tag them for the helluvit. ;)
I love tagging stuff and I usually try to use only one category for each post (although sometimes I use more). I like websites with tags because it allows me to browse to a topic I might like easily and I NEVER (ok well, rarely) use the search form on a website.
I thought tags were pretty cool, but I’m a “folder” type person, so I stick with categories. :D I stick with usually one or two categories, but I haven’t actually added three categories to one blog post.
I mainly use categories, and assign two or three to a post. Kind of like blanket topics for the post. I used to use tags, to outline all possible keywords for the post, but I got lazy and stopped using tags.
Thanks everyone for your opinions! It’s been really interesting to read all the different usages of cats & tags. :)
@Amanda: Good suggestions! That might be what I end up doing somewhat, just to further categorize my posts without having a billion tags. Laziness stands in my way too. XD
AWH, Kristina, you should have a “Melissa” category just for when you stalker-blog about ME! :dance:
Interesting! So do you view and browse through tag clouds when they’re available on a website? I should have asked what people thought of those too. XD
Gheh, at times I just forget to add the category or the tags :P I should pay more attention to it though (I guess). However, when I go to another website I rarely try to find similar posts or something (mainly read the new posts)… but maybe that just means that I should explore these sites a little more ;)
I use categories only. Tags get messy.
I find it easier to put posts into a broad category. Tags seem a bit overwhelming, especially when the topic is more than one thing. I find it a bit hard just to tag Flickr photo, and a picture is worth a thousand words. Makes blogs scary. However I do occasionally tag so I’m getting over it, haha.
I use both categories and tags, basically because of the same reason you mentioned on why you use tags. ^_^
I only use categories. Never really found a use for tags. =/
Like so many other people have said, I just use categories because I’m too lazy to write tags :dance: :ohyeah: