Forum Tags?

[DaveM]

I have yet to see a forum member use tags, so the question is are they worth doing at all and what benefit does it serve a forum having them.

I have been looking at an add on to automatically insert tags but as I have around 209,201 threads that need doing it seems I am rather stuck here.

 

[nodle]

On my site I have a minimum of 2 tags set for each new post, which then forces members to do at least two. As far as the older threads I think it would take some manual editing and adding them.

 

[djbaxter]

People use tags for one of two reasons:

1. Searching using tags for specific topics; and
2. Searchbot crawling and search engine optimization.

If you have a large forum, there may be some benefit to #1, although getting members to comply without annoying them is a significant challenge, and forcing them to provide a tags is a bad idea (for one thing, you have no guarantee the forced tags will be at all useful and members may even enter a nonsense character string).

There really hasn't been any justification for #2 for a very long time. Today's search engines are very good at crawling websites if they have decent internal navigation, and this can be boosted with submitted sitemaps which are far more useful and efficient. Generally, it is advisable to let search engines decide on the best crawl rate for your site — just get out of the way of their searchbots and let them do what they are designed to do.

I don't use tags at all. In my opinion, all they do for most forums is add database bloat.

 

[briansol]

I disabled my users from entering their own... it's all bloat that they don't understand.

I made about 200 tags in admincp, and i exclusively use it for admin level to tag threads that are actually valuable to the topical tag. Mostly my articles and how-to posts get tags. the rest of the threads don't.

that said, it isn't a traffic getter and doesn't even register in analytics as a valuable page

 

[Paul B]

Not once have I ever performed a search using tags.

I don't even notice them on content - thankfully.

 

[DaveM]

What was said above was really what I thought myself but just wanted to get some other opinions on it, thanks all.

 

[Kleazy]

How relevant are they for SEO for XenForo and or also for wordpress (I know this is a XF discussion) ?

 

[djbaxter]

How relevant are they for SEO for XenForo and or also for wordpress (I know this is a XF discussion) ?

I don't use them for either. Tags are about as low as you can go on the SEO totem pole: they're no longer even on the pole.

 

[Kleazy]

I don't use them for either. Tags are about as low as you can go on the SEO totem pole: they're no longer even on the pole.

Thanks.
Thats what I suspected.

In my forum...I see nobody using them...perhaps should disable to run a leaner UX...
In WP use them to cross drive traffic... where the user clicks to similar posts. So its more of an internal organization.

 

[djbaxter]

Thanks.
Thats what I suspected.

In my forum...I see nobody using them...perhaps should disable to run a leaner UX...
In WP use them to cross drive traffic... where the user clicks to similar posts. So its more of an internal organization.

A similar posts plugin for WP would do that better and with less bloat.

 

[DigNap15]

I had never heard to Tags on a Forum until today

I am looking at implementing Prefixes on some of my Forum Categories

 

[Pardal]

Hello, I have given it the following use: I have used the resources as a video game catalog in my forum, then the tags I create only to create game modes in each resource, I thought about using prefixes but it did not convince me, and this so I like it.

Spoiler: Site

https://stadianos.com/juegos/street-power-football.242/

 

[Chromaniac]

tags are a useful way to collect a bunch of threads in a search forum if you have such a purpose.