Tags???

As a non-tag user I have seen this used as an explanation:
https://carthik.net/blog/vault/2006/02/21/tags-are-not-categories/

I am also not a tag user, but am trying to learn. It appears to me that people use tags in a couple of different ways. Some use tags as wp function calls. However, I think most people use tags meaning keywords. For example, you can assign a keywords field to a post and put in it certain key words you want to use by some other method.

There is also discussion of how others use these tags like Google, etc. This is out of my understanding. What I am trying to understand is how to use these tags/keywords. There are several tags plugins that handle this, although I don’t understand these yet.

I use tags. A lot. Think of it as a “folksonomy” (ok, contrived term but here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy )

I use the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin. For each post I make, I give it some descriptive tags. These tags show up at the end of the post and are used in a variety of ways.

1) Offers some keywords for the regular search engines (minor)
2) Offers keywords and searchability for the blog search sites such as Technorati.
3) By clicking on a tag, my blog will show you other posts that had the same tag. An easy way to find related content.
4) For those who like such things, it is also an easy way to build a tag cloud showing what sorts of things have been blogged about and (by size/color) which of those come up more often than others.

(note, you can click over to my blog to see some of this in action. However, right now the “click on a tag to see more” is a bit broke due to another plugin that I’m trying to resolve…)

Thanks – thats a good start – i downloaded the UTW plugin, and have tried to use it, but I can’t see the tags appearing at the end of my postings – does the theme need to be UTW enabled??? – I’m playing with hemingway at the moment

Chris

The UTW Options and Manage pages are a bit daunting at first… but in their you’ll find the options to have it add the tags “automagically” to the end of your posts (assuming you’ve assigned that post some tags).

I think I will have to try UTW. From your description, HandySolo, it does appear to do what I want. Then I can see if it does one more thing (to replace the tag with something else dynamically).

If you think of “tags” as “keywords”, then you won’t be too far wrong.

The real difference between tags and keywords is that tags link to other places. Usually places that list other stuff with the same tag. Also, tags, in the blogging sense, have a specific sort of format to them (rel=’tag’) that causes them to be automatically picked up by various tag reading engines.

Anyway, if you want to tag stuff, then I recommend UTW as well. Just add keywords to all the posts you make in the blog as you see fit. It basically lets tagging engines link your posts to others with the same sort of tags, and helps people to find your content.

Thanks, being a database programmer, I alwys thought keywords was the best description. However, now I see what else can be done with these tags. I just installed UTW. I had to activate 2 of the 3 plugins in the package. Then I imported values I had in my custom keywords field and all worked fine.

Thanks for the basic info on using UTW – The options page wasn’t too clear to me…. I’m not sure if its quite working properly yet – if I click on a tag, it seems to take me back to my frontpage…

Thanks

Chris

chris: Go to the Options->Tags page and make sure that you have the URL rewriting settings set the way you want them to be.

okay – i activated that – but it takes me to a blank page.

Chris

Err… What takes you to a blank page? Sorry, but you lost me, I’m not sure what you’re doing anymore.

clicking on a tag at the bottom of a posting takes me to a blank screen – must be something to do with the re-writing???

Chris

Ahh. Yeah, could be. I’ve not examined UTW in detail so I don’t really know what dark magic it’s performing there.

While I’m not positive, I’m reasonably certain that UTW assumes that you’re using “pretty permalinks”. Look over your settings at the top of “Options -> Tags” as it appears that can be changed.