Tagging weblog posts: Do blog tags assist search engine optimization?

This weekly Ask An search engine optimization query comes from Syed from Kerala, India, who writes:

“ought to we use tags for blog posts? Do weblog tags help search engine optimization? ”

thanks for the super query, Syed!

I understand this a lot, mainly after I communicate at influential and blogger conferences.

the solution is no in nearly each case. Do not use weblog tags.

There’s in all likelihood no want if you’ve executed the paintings of creating user-pleasant categories and subcategories.

earlier than we delve into why, there may be one exception to using blog tags – however no longer for seo functions.

when you have active readers who use blog tags to engage together with your website online, which include customers who frequently click on on tags to find more applicable contentthose identical customers, however, increase your pageviews without bounce, then the tags upload cost.

In some instances, you can discover which you are definitely getting search engine optimization traffic on a bookmarked page. Right here we move into the “unique situations” class.

i would decide and make a plan that in all likelihood doesn’t follow to most different web sites.

due to the fact that this is not a preferred solution and you haven’t provided your web site, i can avoid many details.

observe that we are speaking approximately blogs and no longer e-commerce stores.

Ecommerce stores can use tags for records assets, sorting, developing subfolders and directories, and so on.

this can be dealt with in another way with meta robots and different gear.

they are currently a important evil for e-commerce, not blogs.

For blogs that use tags, I surprisingly advise the usage of noindex metarobots, comply with the tags.

The cause for neindex, follow tags is that tags typically cause skinny, double, or a competitive reproduction. You don’t need to waste Google crawling, even when you have the right canonical hyperlinks and could have inner hyperlinks to observe.

because you want to track your internal links, use traces as opposed to nofollow for noindex.

weblog tags in most cases:

• Create particular pages which are in all likelihood to compete with main categories and articles because they’re brief variations of the equal topic. There might not be a “read greater” feature for older web sites, which makes UX weird whilst full posts and comments appear within the reading pane.
• Compete with other labels cannibalizing keywords if they’re too comparable.
• Bookmark pages that comprise many articles or only a few. Those pages are possibly no longer an amazing user enjoy that all of us may want to agree to from Google search. However, articles on the category page can be a better revel in.
• Spend your price range on crawling. If you have 100 posts and 1000 tags, seek engine spiders wander off inside the mass net of tags and those identical tags can smash the proper shape of a internet site.
• upload additional hyperlinks to the body, sidebar, or primary a part of your web page which “theoretically” reduces the amount of authority that any internal connection can delegate. I don’t care a lot approximately it, but I placed it right here because the other human beings I’m speakme to experience it strongly.
• If a tag is critical to your subject matter, you may possibly write a committed post for it and organization it right into a blog category. Have a devoted tag / key-word posting is a higher enjoy for a website vacationer and it could make feel for a seek engine to seem in search results.

Years in the past, tags were exact and bloggers could use them.

Now, but, they may be greater undesirable content, creating thin pages, cannibalizing key phrases, and can hurt your content material search budget.

except you’re a publisher who makes cash on web page perspectives and tags convey you a whole lot of revenue, I don’t endorse the usage of them.

it’d probable be better to cognizance on your classes and blog posts whilst the usage of the precise website online structure, consisting of categories, subcategories, crumbs, sitemaps, inner links, and navigation elements.

i’m hoping this may help you answer your question. It’s fantastic!

Many humans regularly ask the same issue.

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Ask seo is a weekly search engine optimization advice column written via some of the nice seo professionals inside the industry, hand-picked by means of the hunt Engine journal. Have a question about search engine optimization? Fill out our form. You may see your solution within the next submit #AskanSEO!

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