Categories versus Tags

[jshaffstall]

I'm a bit confused on the difference between categories and tags and how Technorati uses both.

Originally I'd thought that Technorati used tags, so a tagging plugin for Wordpress was needed to get visibility there. But from reading here, it sounds like Technorati will use Wordpress categories as tags?

Any help to dispel my confusion would be much appreciated.

Jay

[Bloggeries]

Hi Jay,

Technorati does use wordpress categories as tags. You can also install tag programs to further tag your bloggeries into other technorati tags. Personally whenever I started getting crazy with tag editors technorati started ignoring my blog. My best advice would be to use categories and leave the tag editors alone. It's a dark sad day when your posts no longer show up in technorati. I think they do it as a way to limit the number of tags applicable to each post. Without it people would be putting every single popular tag under the book on every single blog post and it would defeat the purpose of tagging.

I hope this helps,
Rob

Originally Posted by jshaffstall

I'm a bit confused on the difference between categories and tags and how Technorati uses both.

Originally I'd thought that Technorati used tags, so a tagging plugin for Wordpress was needed to get visibility there. But from reading here, it sounds like Technorati will use Wordpress categories as tags?

Any help to dispel my confusion would be much appreciated.

Jay

[jshaffstall]

Rob,

Thanks for the info. I'll have to do some adjustments to my blog then, to use categories instead of tags. I wasn't entirely comfortable using tags, but also didn't want to be left out of Technorati traffic. Glad to hear I can go back to using categories and still be okay.

Jay

[Bloggeries]

Definately. Categories are the way to go; especially if your writing about a niche which is "making money" I'm sure you can have a decent number of categories which covers everything. Try and look at technorati tags to see which terms are most popular in the top 100 and then just check how many others are blogging about it those terms before you choose. The bigger the term the more people coming through... Flip side is you'lll only be on the first page for a very short time!

Originally Posted by jshaffstall

Rob,

Thanks for the info. I'll have to do some adjustments to my blog then, to use categories instead of tags. I wasn't entirely comfortable using tags, but also didn't want to be left out of Technorati traffic. Glad to hear I can go back to using categories and still be okay.

Jay

[Wordpress_guy]

for me tags is similar with "keyword" in search engine. It is key term to find website. in google social bookmarking called as label.

category in other hand, it is filing system to collect similar page or website. In category, we can make it in deep. it means we can make deep "subcategory"

[Bloggeries]

I agree however technorati automatically processes your category of choice as a tag. As it's a keyword or phrase to best describe the post topic correct? So they are different but for the sake of technorati basically the same.

Originally Posted by Wordpress_guy

for me tags is similar with "keyword" in search engine. It is key term to find website. in google social bookmarking called as label.

category in other hand, it is filing system to collect similar page or website. In category, we can make it in deep. it means we can make deep "subcategory"

[jshaffstall]

Okay, so I've converted back over to categories from tags. I can't say yet whether it's better for SEO purposes or not, but it certainly feels better to have something other than "Uncategorized" to click on when I create posts!

Thanks again to everyone who offered perspectives on this.

Jay

[Bloggeries]

You'll be much better off in the long run! Keep us posted and as always good luck with your bloggeries

Originally Posted by jshaffstall

Okay, so I've converted back over to categories from tags. I can't say yet whether it's better for SEO purposes or not, but it certainly feels better to have something other than "Uncategorized" to click on when I create posts!

Thanks again to everyone who offered perspectives on this.

Jay

[Webtools]

The above discussion is mainly about the wordpress pltform.
I use the blogger. How does the technorati tags fit there. If I use Windows live writer, then it has an option for inserting technorati tags. But blogger itself doesn't have any.
How can I insert them.
Does just inserting Labels will serve the purpose?

Please enlighten.

[jshaffstall]

I have a blogger blog, too, and have seen labels there turn up under Technorati as tags, so it seems that they hook up.

Jay