A recent thread here raised certain questions regarding the use of categories and tags (ie the freetag plugin). I thought the subject warranted a further discussion on the advantages of one method over the other. Please feel free to share your thoughts and personal experience. Below are POSSIBLE points to discuss, but please do not feel obligated to limit your response to these points - any input will certainly help the community!
1) Categories are preferred over tags, or offer unique functionality, because or when ........
2) Tags are preferred over categories, or offer unique functionality, because or when ........
3) Using both is preferred because or when .......
4) Any additional insights as to how one/both is different/better/preferred.
Categories vs. tags
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Don Chambers
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Categories vs. tags
Last edited by Don Chambers on Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
=Don=
I use both.
I've used categories forever and just started using tags. I like the tags better because of the related posts option. I feel that the tags are less formal than categories. For example on my site I will do the following: A post about Vista I will put in microsoft, vista, and some other tags that are related to the post. While I just put it in the Operating Systems category.
I feel that having both gives the user a better option to find something they are interested in.
I've used categories forever and just started using tags. I like the tags better because of the related posts option. I feel that the tags are less formal than categories. For example on my site I will do the following: A post about Vista I will put in microsoft, vista, and some other tags that are related to the post. While I just put it in the Operating Systems category.
I feel that having both gives the user a better option to find something they are interested in.
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carl_galloway
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I've played with categories and tags, with varying success, but I'm about to ditch tags. Remember my needs are different from most bloggers. I use some of my sites to generate an income, in fact a fair number of Serendipity users do this as well, and I've found that the freetag plugin creates too many page views without improving the user's experience (they become frustrated).
Why? Because when users are reading an interesting article and they reach the end, they see a link to a tag, then click it thinking they're going to find another gem worth reading, and end up seeing the same entries rearranged. The net result is they become frustrated and exit the site. I'd hazard a guess if Chickens looked into his logs and studied how his users are navigating his blog he might find a similar trend. I could be wrong but...
As for the related entries, this can be worth having if the other related entries are very related or expand on a concept introduced in the current entry, but then why wouldn't you link directly to the related entry from within the entry your visitor is reading and give them more context as to why it's related. The issue for me with having related entries is that it only displays the title, but often the reader is more interested in just one or two paragraphs of that entry, and pointing them to the relevant section is more appropriate.
Why? Because when users are reading an interesting article and they reach the end, they see a link to a tag, then click it thinking they're going to find another gem worth reading, and end up seeing the same entries rearranged. The net result is they become frustrated and exit the site. I'd hazard a guess if Chickens looked into his logs and studied how his users are navigating his blog he might find a similar trend. I could be wrong but...
As for the related entries, this can be worth having if the other related entries are very related or expand on a concept introduced in the current entry, but then why wouldn't you link directly to the related entry from within the entry your visitor is reading and give them more context as to why it's related. The issue for me with having related entries is that it only displays the title, but often the reader is more interested in just one or two paragraphs of that entry, and pointing them to the relevant section is more appropriate.
Re: Categories vs. tags
Funny. I wasn't aware of that thread, but asked myself that question some days ago. I even posted a little survey to my blog, basically asking my very small share of regular visitors (which is probably the reason why I only got one answerDon Chambers wrote:A recent thread here raised certain questions regarding the use of categories and tags (ie the freetag plugin). I thought the subject warranted a further discussion on the advantages of one method over the other.
) whether they actually used both for navigation.I don't think this can be answered in general. It depends on the actual blog and it's range of topics. Of course it also depends on the categories and tags actually used, the number of those used etc. I.e. if you use a huge number of tags, categories can make it easier to find posts on the topic a visitor is actually looking for. On the other hand, tags are much better for finding similar or related topics.
I'm inclined to advocate combined use of both, but there might very well be scenarios where one or the other is obsolete.
YL
I've found that most people click on the related entries at the bottom of the post which comes from the tags. Not many people click on the tags them self that I have seen in my logs.carl_galloway wrote:I'd hazard a guess if Chickens looked into his logs and studied how his users are navigating his blog he might find a similar trend. I could be wrong but...
To be fair, I am not looking to make any money off my site. I think I've made $3 on adsense since I added it about a month ago. My target crowd does not click ads, heck I don't either.