Comments on: WordPress Tags – Uses and Abuses

By: TV

TV — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:45:16 +0000

Google is likely to put one of the pages into the main index (if it is good enough), and the others will be hidden in supplementary, or not indexed at all. Which page does Google index? If you have the same article on 5 pages, Google will make the choice, and may not use the one you want them to use.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:16:39 +0000

You mean on a single post?

I would use no more than 3-4 per post, and these 3 or 4 would not be the same as any category name you are using.

By: Fiona Bosticky

Fiona Bosticky — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:07:24 +0000

Thanks for this Andy. I have a quick question: how many tags do you think is the right amount to have on a wordpress website?

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 08:38:00 +0000

HI Stephen
You state:
“Google will pick one copy and go with it”

My point is, do you want Google to pick one copy? I prefer to pick which copy Google indexes as I can control what the visitor sees. If Google picks my tag page to show for a particular keyword phrase, the visitor will not be landing on the post I wanted them to see.

Also, duplicate content is not just about the same content on different domains (in which case Google will pick the one and often not the original one), its about the same content on one domain, or even similar content on the same domain.

What I am talking about here is not “gaming” the search engines, it is helping them. I am telling them which pages are important, and which are less so. Google appreciates that…

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:27:02 +0000

I have not found the use of tags to be of any trouble frankly. Google will pick one copy and go with it. If you are spamming from your website using tons of tags, then probably you will see your rankings fade. I mean if everyone of your posts includes a tag for “make gazillions”, you are spamming.

Duplicate content involves identical (or darn near same) content being served on different domains. Even then nothing earth shattering will befall a scraper beyond the DC providing little if any SEO benefit. The first copy will rule, yours is just fluff.

But who cares anyway? We should be focusing on the users, not bots and how to game the SEs. If you think your users could use more ways to find your content using a tag, go for it.

This is 2009 and we should be way past gaming the SEs. Google is not stupid. They can detect somebody trying to play games easily these days.

Fact of the matter is, provide valuable content people want and you are 99% of the way home on this seo stuff.