October 4, 2022 | Posted in WordPress
What is the Variance Between Tags and Categories?
Categories are meant to group your posts broadly. Think of these as general topics or your site’s table of contents. Categories are organized in a hierarchy so that you can make subcategories. Tags help people understand what your posts are about. Think of these as the keywords for your site. They let you divide your content into smaller groups. Tags don’t have a set order.
For example, this “Beginners Guide” blog post is in our “Beginners Guide” category. Go to Blog » Getting Started guide in our navigation menu to see all the posts in this category. This post has the following tags: categories, custom taxonomy, categories vs. tags, SEO best practices, SEO, sorting your content, and tags.
These tags will not show up anywhere on our article. But they help people find this article when they search for things like it on our blog. One of the major differences between tags and categories is that every WordPress post has to be filed under a category, but they don’t have to have tags.
If you don’t choose a category for your post, WordPress will put it in the default category. This is called “Uncategorized,” but it’s usually better to change it to something like “Other” or “Miscellaneous.”
You can add categories and tags when you write or change a post in WordPress. You can find them on the right side of the screen under “Document.”
You can add new categories and tags by going to Posts » Categories and Posts » Tags.
Check out our interpretations of What is a category? And What is a tag? to learn more about how to add categories and tags. What is a tag? and How do I use tags?
You don’t have to have a certain number of categories. Most of the time, you’ll need between 5 and 10 categories to organize your posts well and make your site easy to navigate.
Categories are intended to keep a lot of posts together. You can divide your posts into smaller groups by using subcategories and tags. Don’t worry about creating the perfect category list if you’re starting a blog. Just pick three to five big groups and add as more time goes on.
You don’t have to use subcategories, and many big blogs, like WPBeginner, don’t. But subcategories are helpful if you have a big category with many posts that could be split into smaller sections.
For instance, you could have a “Recipes” section with more and more gluten-free recipes. You can give these posts their subcategory so that people can find them easily. You make a new ” Gluten-Free ” subcategory under “Recipes” and move these posts there.
Some sites use the Category name in their permalinks, which you can set up under Settings » Permalinks.
WordPress will usually try to change the old URL to the fresh one. Checking to see if your links still work is a good idea. If necessary, you can fix up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.
You can also keep the post in the parent category and assign it to the child category, but this cannot be good in some ways. Even though the URL of the WPBeginner website includes categories, we always suggest that users use a shorter URL structure that only includes “Post name.”
This will give you the most freedom to move content around without worrying about setting up redirects. The modern Post name URL structure is used on all our new sites. WPBeginner has been around for over 10 years and has a legacy URL structure. Changing the URL structure isn’t good for SEO, so we haven’t changed it.
WordPress allows you to put a comment into multiple categories. This could be a parent category plus one or more subcategories or a parent category plus several subcategories. Having more than one category will not help your SEO. If it is most beneficial for your readers, you should only put a post in more than one category.
If your post is in more than one category, it could hurt your SEO because the content is already out there. If you use more than one category, try not to put the same post in more than one main category. Every post should belong to one of the main categories.
There is no limit on how multiple tags you can use on each post in WordPress. You might be able to tag a post with 1,000 or more tags. The point of tags is to help connect similar posts. Believe them enjoy the table of contents in a textbook. In the index, each tag is like a keyword.
Tags help people who want to find your site. Tags help some plugins that show related posts figure out which posts have similar topics. We suggest that you utilize no more than 10 tags per post.
Is it better for WordPress SEO to use tags or categories, or vice versa? Categories and tags are each used for different things. You must use categories, but you don’t get to use tags if you don’t want to. But we suggest using both to help people find their way around your site.
Ultimately, you should make your site with the users in mind. All search engines want to show people the information that will help them the most. This means that putting your content in a way that makes it easy to use will also help your SEO.
We desire this article to assist you in comprehending the difference between categories and tags and the best ways to sort your content for SEO. You might also like our article on monitoring WordPress classification and tag analytics and comparing the finest keyword research tools for SEO.
You might not know what categories and tags are and how they differ in WordPress. If you know this, you can use them in the right way. This article will discuss the differences between categories and tags and how they can affect your SEO rankings.
Categories are meant to group your posts broadly. Think of these as general topics or your site’s table of contents. Categories are organized in a hierarchy so that you can make subcategories. Tags help people understand what your posts are about. Think of these as the keywords for your site. They let you divide your content into smaller groups. Tags don’t have a set order.
For example, this “Beginners Guide” blog post is in our “Beginners Guide” category. Go to Blog » Getting Started guide in our navigation menu to see all the posts in this category. This post has the following tags: categories, custom taxonomy, categories vs. tags, SEO best practices, SEO, sorting your content, and tags.
These tags will not show up anywhere on our article. But they help people find this article when they search for things like it on our blog. One of the major differences between tags and categories is that every WordPress post has to be filed under a category, but they don’t have to have tags.
If you don’t choose a category for your post, WordPress will put it in the default category. This is called “Uncategorized,” but it’s usually better to change it to something like “Other” or “Miscellaneous.”
You can add categories and tags when you write or change a post in WordPress. You can find them on the right side of the screen under “Document.”
You can add new categories and tags by going to Posts » Categories and Posts » Tags.
Check out our interpretations of What is a category? And What is a tag? to learn more about how to add categories and tags. What is a tag? and How do I use tags?
How Many Categories Does WordPress Need?
You don’t have to have a certain number of categories. Most of the time, you’ll need between 5 and 10 categories to organize your posts well and make your site easy to navigate.
Categories are intended to keep a lot of posts together. You can divide your posts into smaller groups by using subcategories and tags. Don’t worry about creating the perfect category list if you’re starting a blog. Just pick three to five big groups and add as more time goes on.
Do I have to make subcategories?
You don’t have to use subcategories, and many big blogs, like WPBeginner, don’t. But subcategories are helpful if you have a big category with many posts that could be split into smaller sections.
For instance, you could have a “Recipes” section with more and more gluten-free recipes. You can give these posts their subcategory so that people can find them easily. You make a new ” Gluten-Free ” subcategory under “Recipes” and move these posts there.
Using Categories in the URLs of Your Blog Posts
Some sites use the Category name in their permalinks, which you can set up under Settings » Permalinks.
WordPress will usually try to change the old URL to the fresh one. Checking to see if your links still work is a good idea. If necessary, you can fix up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.
You can also keep the post in the parent category and assign it to the child category, but this cannot be good in some ways. Even though the URL of the WPBeginner website includes categories, we always suggest that users use a shorter URL structure that only includes “Post name.”
This will give you the most freedom to move content around without worrying about setting up redirects. The modern Post name URL structure is used on all our new sites. WPBeginner has been around for over 10 years and has a legacy URL structure. Changing the URL structure isn’t good for SEO, so we haven’t changed it.
Can I assign a post to better than one category?
WordPress allows you to put a comment into multiple categories. This could be a parent category plus one or more subcategories or a parent category plus several subcategories. Having more than one category will not help your SEO. If it is most beneficial for your readers, you should only put a post in more than one category.
If your post is in more than one category, it could hurt your SEO because the content is already out there. If you use more than one category, try not to put the same post in more than one main category. Every post should belong to one of the main categories.
Does a post have a maximum number of tags?
There is no limit on how multiple tags you can use on each post in WordPress. You might be able to tag a post with 1,000 or more tags. The point of tags is to help connect similar posts. Believe them enjoy the table of contents in a textbook. In the index, each tag is like a keyword.
Tags help people who want to find your site. Tags help some plugins that show related posts figure out which posts have similar topics. We suggest that you utilize no more than 10 tags per post.
Is it better for WordPress SEO to use tags or categories, or vice versa? Categories and tags are each used for different things. You must use categories, but you don’t get to use tags if you don’t want to. But we suggest using both to help people find their way around your site.
Ultimately, you should make your site with the users in mind. All search engines want to show people the information that will help them the most. This means that putting your content in a way that makes it easy to use will also help your SEO.
We desire this article to assist you in comprehending the difference between categories and tags and the best ways to sort your content for SEO. You might also like our article on monitoring WordPress classification and tag analytics and comparing the finest keyword research tools for SEO.