WordPress Categories vs Tags from an SEO Perspective

June 30, 2009
By: Justin Britt
Author's Website: http://www.hawaiilife.com/

One of the dilemmas I face when launching a new Wordress site is whether I should use categories, tags or both to organize content. Both are good options, and when used properly, can be utilized effectively from an SEO perspective. Whatever you choose, stick with it. Changing from categories to tags or vice-versa, after you have a few hundred post will be a lot of work. Also, if you choose to use both categories and tags (and if you use a 3rd - archives), make sure you only index one of them with search engines (to avoid duplicate content). This can be done using a plugin like the popular All in one SEO Pack.

Tags

Tags are a little more complicated, but also provide you will some added functionality. When you create your post, you add tags to it. So for the same post about “Mobile SEO”, you might add the tags “seo” and “mobile”. If the article was more specifically about optimizing for Google Local so it comes up on iPhone map based searches, you could also include the tags “Google” and “iPhone”. The complication that arises from tagging is that it is very easy to go overboard with your tags. For the same post you could easily add the tags “Google Local”, “Maps”, “Mapping” and “Apple” (not to mention many others). This will dilute your tag cloud and make it hard for users to find content on your site.

The added functionality provided by tags cannot be overlooked, however. Say, after posting our article, you see a huge influx of traffic. After some quick research in Google Trends you notice that the amount of searches for “Mobile SEO” is increasing and you decide to create a few more posts on the subject. After creating these posts, you get even more traffic, and now you want to create a new “Mobile SEO” section of your site.

If you are using categories, you create a new category, then go back through your old post and edit matching posts to included your new category. If this is just a few articles, no problem, but if it’s hundreds, this can be a daunting task.
If you are using tags, you simply mash up 2 tags (or more) into a link like /mobile+seo/. So if Geek Estate were using tags the new link would be something like www.geekestateblog.com/tag/mobile+seo/. This will include all posts that have both the tag “mobile” and the tag “seo”.

If you decide to use tags like this, you could then create a set of links from within WordPress with all your tag mash ups, name it categories, and use them in your sidebar in place of the category or tag widgets (this is a good option for those of you who don’t like the look of tag clouds). This will also provide you with the great benefit of being able to use keyword phrases which were previously reserved for categories only.

The one problem that you come across using tags like this is that you have limited control of your title tags and main page headings for these mashed up pages (which are crucial of on page optimization). This is solved using a great plugin from Netconcpets called SEO Title Tag.

Both categories and tags can be used effectively to organize content and SEO your blog. These days I tend to lean towards tags because of their flexibility. However, when you have multiple authors (like Drew does here on GeekEstateBlog.com) I would favor categories because authors can get a little crazy tagging posts.

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Wordpress Categories vs Tags from an SEO Perspective | GeekEstate … | Angelove on June 30, 2009 11:18 am

[...] Continued here: WordPress Categories vs Tags from an SEO Perspective | GeekEstate … [...]
Alison Moore Smith on June 30, 2009 11:25 am

How timely, as I was researching this just today.

Unfortunately, I still don’t know how I want to deal with this issue, but I have gained some valuable info.
Chris Davies on June 30, 2009 12:30 pm

I’ve gotta disagree with your strategy in favour of a slightly more clear-cut one.

Only one category per post. Multiple tags.
Index categories. Noindex/nofollow tags.

You want to make sure your content lives in as few places as possible, and that it’s building strong themes. If there’s something that appears to be a relevant theme, use AllInOne to expose just that tag.

That said, I will use two categories if it’s a guest post, and the guest post catagory will be noindexed/nofollowed. That’s when I’m dealing with a duplicate content problem. The AllInOne’s use of the canonical tag helps quite a bit too.
Wordpress Categories vs Tags from an SEO Perspective | GeekEstate … on June 30, 2009 12:53 pm

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Justin Britt on June 30, 2009 1:25 pm

@Chis – This is a very good way to run a blog from an SEO standpoint. You will have no duplicate content issues using this formula. I employ this tactic for a few blogs myself.

I think the idea of the canonical tag (not to be confused w/ WordPress tags) is great, and works wonderfully in Yahoo! and Bing. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t use canonical in the same way from what I’ve seen.

I do think that you can Index/Dofollow tags in a blog successfully by pulling different posts together (maybe adding some additional relevant content) without creating duplicate issues. Mashing up content to create useful pages for your visitors is what web 2.0 is all about.
Swansonager on June 30, 2009 1:46 pm

I tend to agree with Chris, I use one category per post and then multiple tags within that post, etc. fwiw –

- Swansonager
Trace on June 30, 2009 1:53 pm

I use both, cats as macro organizers and tags as micro. I used to index cats and noindex tags, but I’ve changed that stance. Since I have more tags that cover more diverse topics, I get more pages indexed allowing tags to be indexed and excluding cats.

Every article I write gets one category (this is great for management of articles in menus and sidebars) and I’m very selective about creating as few categories as possible that are generally very broad. I then tag each article as necessary with more micro topics.

Example: My last article is on HR 3044 and how it might impose an 18 month moratorium on HVCC.

article: http://tinyurl.com/mw5vo4

Category: Legislation
Tags: HVCC, HR 3044

This article now ranks (two days later) anywhere between #3 and #5 in google with my original article first and the tag page for “hr 3044″ as a secondary listing when searching google for “HR 3044″ link: http://tinyurl.com/law6sd.

Sure I could have made a category called “HR 3044″, but again, I want to harness the organizational capability of categories in case I need to organize my content into no more than 10 to 20 total categories. So categories organize at a macro level over a handful of broad categories and tags organize at a micro level.
Chris Davies on June 30, 2009 2:31 pm

I like Trace’s system for this example. I suppose it depends on where you’re at with your blog and your goals. I work for a SEO firm, and have clients with over a hundred blogs, some 4-5 years old with 1000′s of posts….but for a new blog that might be the way to go.
Justin Britt on June 30, 2009 3:56 pm

@Trace – I think this is a more modern way of organizing content on a blog. Very good for getting Google to index your pages.
@Chris – As I mentioned in my post, changing the structure of blogs with 1000′s of pages is not an option.
Wordpress Categories vs Tags from an SEO Perspective | GeekEstate … | ASulumitsRetsambew.Com RSS Blog on June 30, 2009 4:24 pm

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Mike Andrew on June 30, 2009 11:38 pm

Hi Justin,

Thanks for some great advice.

Regards

Mike
Jeff in Hawaii on July 1, 2009 8:32 am

Never thought about using Tags for SEO reasons. I have been using categories & archives. Very interesting point a view. I wonder which is better to no index (category or archive). Would love top hear what others think?
Website Designer on July 15, 2009 9:32 am

I have to agree to this one post category wise and obviously we can multiply them later as and when competition heats up !!!!
Website Designer on July 15, 2009 9:32 am

I have to agree to this one post category wise and obviously we can multiply them later as and when competition heats up !!!!
Iron Castings on July 16, 2009 8:28 pm

This is a very good way to run a blog from an SEO standpoint.
socialmaker on September 23, 2009 7:31 am

When it comes to optimizare seo and seo services there are only a handful of companies who really know what they're doing. Only these know what content is all about, fixing site issues, URL canoniclization and rewrites and getting you a lot of links.
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Hi,
There are many others like WordPress, such as Blogger, SquareSpace, TypePad, Moveable Type, etc.However, the open-source capabilities and the vast community of users that WordPress offers far exceeds that of their competitors.WordPress makes things easy for design-gurus and design-newbies alike. If you want to build a WordPress site from scratch, they have the WordPress Codex. If you want a design that is already completed, there are several great WordPress Theme directories out there…
Event Planner San Francisco on February 13, 2010 1:59 pm

I think it completely depends on the how you want to place yourself. Most go with a dedicated categories with multiple tags in it and it works as its proven quite a lot of time. And this is what an SEO compatible site would be if you wish to increase you page ranking and visibility and have a good lot of new visitors to your site.
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Jack on April 6, 2010 9:08 pm

Nice plugin thanks
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weekend in magaluf on July 20, 2010 7:22 am

I personally use both, a tag to me is a broad discretion of the topic and could be contained in multiple categories.