Let’s talk about categories and tags. Several people have asked what are they, what’s the difference and when should I use one over the other. So I thought this might be a good time to not only post some general guidelines, but to also spark some conversation among our bloggers as to what you like and don’t like with regard to these things, and also to make suggestions to others, for their blogs.
Now at the most basic level, categories and tags are ways for you the blogger (aka author) to organize your blog (aka journal) in a way that’s easy for you and your readers to understand, and hopefully find information.
According to Movable Type, our blogging software of choice, “In creating categories, it’s best if you make them as general and broad as possible and have very few of them. In this way, they provide a perfect counterbalance to the very specific and granual entry tags …” Furthermore, they go on to say, “Tags are simple words or short phrases that you attach to an item which describe particular facets of it. Tags are most effective when they are very specific. This specificity is gained through the use of tag combinations, which essentially form ‘tag intersections’. Tags can optionally be displayed on the published weblog where readers can click on them to find other entries that are similarly tagged.”
So what does that mean? Well, let’s say you are only using your blog while you’re traveling. One possible suggestion would be to set up a category for each trip you take. In that way, if you (or someone else) want to read all about the trip you took in 2001 to France, for example, the reader could just click that category. The reader could read about your 2002 trip to Agentina, by clicking that category and your 2003 trip to Germany by clicking that category. Now, let’s say you really like France and return there in 2004 and 2005. You have a few options. You could continue with the category for each trip, or you could try using a subcategory. Have I lost you?
Here’s what you could do, you could create a category called France, and underneath it have three subcategories, one for each of your trips (2001, 2004, and 2005). Now, let’s say on two of those three trips to France, you visited Paris. Do you want to add a further sub category, to each of those categories for Paris? If you do, you’re sidebar that lists the categories, will begin to look a little long, sort of like this:
- France
- France 2001
- Paris 2001
- France 2004
- France 2005
- Paris 2005
- Argentina 2002
- Germany 2003
You could, on the other hand, just make Paris it’s own category, and link your entries for Paris in the both France trips, to multiple categories, but your category sidebar will still be long, like this:
- France
- France 2001
- Paris
- France 2004
- France 2005
- Argentina 2002
- Germany 2003
And it’s a little inconsistent because while the other categories correspond to trips you’ve taken, the Paris category crosses trips.
So what to do? That’s where the tags come in. Tags are supposed to be specific, and they can and should cross category boundaries. So in the above example, you could remove Paris all together and merely “tag” each entry that mentions or deals with Paris, with a Paris “tag.” Then, when you or someone else is reading, an entry on Paris, for example, they may say, “Hey what else does Joe Blogger have on Paris?” and can click on the Paris tag at the end of the entry, to see every other entry that you’ve tagged for Paris. You can even be more specific, by using Paris Restaurants, Paris Museums, for example.
We can reverse this too a bit. Let’s say you’re not a linear thinker. Perhaps you want to access your blog via country. Then in the above example your categories would be:
- France
- Argentina
- Germany
Very neat. Then you might have tags per trip, or skip the trip organization all together. It’s really up to you.
I’m in the process of re-organizing my blog now. I’ve removed some of the higher categories (e.g., Italy and France), and instead replaced them with two high level categories, Daily Grind, and Trips, which pretty much covers what I write about in its entirety. Now under Trips, I have a category for each trip I have taken or am about to take. Eventually, as I travel this may get to be a bit unwieldy, but I’ll worry about that when it happens (I should be so fortunate, as grandma used to say).
Now I’m going through and tagging each entry. So, any posts where I mention Rome, get a tag of Rome, anywhere we I mention a winery or visit a winery, get a tag of winery, and any that include packing lists, get a tag of packing lists, well you get the idea. Basically, I’m tagging specific ways in which I or someone else may want to access information in my blog.
I hope I haven’t confused you. And I hope that this stimulates a bit of discussion and suggestions on the message board. There is one thought I want to leave you with though – These blogs are fluid. They change as you change so don’t be afraid to reorganize your categories and tags as you see fit. The only issue I can find so far, is when you change the category name, any other website that links to your blog, via that old category, will lose its link but if it correctly uses the permalink to link to specific entries, you have nothing to lose.
Play around with it a bit, and see what I mean. In addition to my blog, Leslie’s Kaleidescope blog uses tags too.
