What are Tags and how important are they??

[MoonShadows]

I have no experience with Tags. Are they important for SEO, and do they give you a better shot at page rank? Is it best to force tags with new threads/posts? And, if so, what is a good setting? Is there a way to make tags voluntary when posting? And, there are probably more questions that I am not asking and/or don't even know to ask, but perhaps I can start learning here. Thanks for any help.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

SEO is a pretty useless subject nowadays. Google is far beyond SEO. Pagerank hasn't existed for years.

You can rank a website with zero links. You can drop a website by creating links unnaturally. You can drop a site in reverse of both of those. Google is complicate.

Your use of tags should be ONLY if you feel your site is complicated enough to warrant the need for additional search narrowing parameters, being what tags do. Tag content, click tag to see similar content with same tag. If that is not what your site needs, then don't use them.

 

[MoonShadows]

@Anthony Parsons Thanks for that input. I appreciate it. Like for most, really understanding SEO has always been just beyond my grasp. To me it seems what really matters is how much traffic you are getting. Get more traffic, get better position in searches. Get less traffic, get lower position in searches. It almost seems like a Catch 22 situation to me. What I try to focus on is a clean website with unique and pertinent content that gets added to on a regular basis. Beyond that, I don't lose any sleep.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Nowadays that's about it... don't lose sleep over it. Localisation killed globalisation for a website. Google has gotten very good at showing the right content to a user based on many factors, most of which you have little control or influence over nowadays. Just create a site for users, not search engines, and the right traffic will be at your door. It is better to have 10 active posters on a forum, than a hundred lurkers who will never contribute.