Part of the creation of the GFN sites was eliminating more than 99% of the tags that were stored in our databases. After the launch, we are more closely monitoring use of tags and deleting tags that are misused.
The TL;DR version of this guide is: Don’t use any tags on your posts except for a few limited exceptions.
The Common Myth About Tags
The biggest myth about using tags is: It helps with SEO.
Reality: It doesn’t. Adding a tag doesn’t add any SEO meta data to a post. At least, nothing that Google pays attention to. It does nothing to help Google figure out what a post is about. The words used in your post is is what does that. (Detailed information is found in our GeekFamily On-Page SEO Guide.)
The fact is, it can harm SEO. It harms SEO in two ways:
- The slug for the tags competes with keywords found in posts. If Google can’t tell what posts on our site are about which keywords, but sees a canonical link (which tags are), SERP will display the URL with the tag, instead of the post. This is because keywords in URLs are the first thing Google scans before scanning the content. If that keyword isn’t in your content in specific ways, your post won’t rank for it. You’re competing against not only yourself, but also every other post using that tag. People don’t pay attention to URLs in SERP. They’ll see the link, click, be faced with an archive instead of a post, and close the tab because they aren’t getting the information they were searching for.
- It slows down the site. Part of SEO is load time. The more tags used, the longer it takes the page to load as the database works overtime, spitting out all the different ways things are cross-linked.
If you have been writing for GeekDad/GeekMom since the Wired days, you may be thinking, “But, I was told to use tags for SEO!”
That’s true. You were. Because way back in the day, Tags did help with SEO. Most sites are built using the following HTML Schema.org markup: <span class=”tag-links” itemprop=”keywords”>
A few years ago, Google decided to ignore ‘itemprop=”keywords”‘ because people were using it to game SEO and keyword stuffing; getting their articles to rank for things not even remotely connected to the content. Now, it’s all about what’s on the page and not what’s in the code (with a few technical SEO details that aren’t important for this guide).
What Tags Actually Do
Tags are really just another category. But, they are a little more granular. Before the launch of the new GFN sites, we had close to 50k tags. Added to the categories, that equaled over 50k categories and associated archive links. That gets called almost every time someone hits the website. Most of the tags on the site were redundant. Tags are to be used to help better organize a website and help visitors find related content that may interest them.
After cleaning up the tags, we have 711 tags for GeekMom and 1,827 tags for GeekDad.
The canonical link for tags is https://domain.com/tag/slug
The canonical link for categories is https://domain.com/category/slug
They are both Archive pages that contain posts of the same theme.
Examples of Tags That Are NOT Okay to Use
- Any tag that has an existing category or tags that are variations of an existing category. If any part of your tag matches any part of a category, don’t use it. Here is a list of GeekDad categories to help you know which tags the GeekDads should avoid, and here is a list of GeekMom categories to help you know which tags the GeekMoms should avoid. If you don’t see a category but think it should exist, let @jules know in the #site channel.
- People’s names unless they are people about whom we write often, like Neil Gaiman.
- Titles of books, comic books, movies, apps, TV shows, TV episode titles, games, etc., unless we are doing a series of posts about those things. If it’s the case of a themed-week, or theme takeover, the editors will decide on a tag to use for all the posts for that event.
- Variations of broader themes. Some examples: We had over 40 tags that contain the word “zombie” when only “zombies” should be used; we had over 30 tags for variations of “Young Adult” when only “YA” should be used; we haved 58 tags that contain the word “fantasy” when only “fantasy” should exist.
- Hashtags.
- Product Names or Product Categories unless you plan to write more than 10 posts about a specific product or product category, or if it already exists.
- Brands that you only plan to write about once.
- Things that will never be written about again.
- If you start to type and the tag doesn’t appear, don’t add it until you check with @jules in Slack.
- This is not a complete list. If you don’t see a tag type in the approved list below, please ask before using it.
Examples of Tags That Are Okay to Use
- Things that can be considered subcategories. We have a Books category, so subcategories would be genre: Non-Fiction, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, YA, Board Books, Children’s Books. We have Health as a category, so subcategories could be: ADHD, Anxiety, OCD, Autism, but only if you think they’ll be written about more than a couple of times. We have Tabletop Games as a category, so with tags those could be further sorted as RPGs, Dice Games, Card Games, etc.
- Franchises and sub-series of those franchises if we write about them often: Star Wars, Star Trek, individual Star Wars cartoon series, individual Star Trek series (again, be consistent), Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Wonder Woman, Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, D&D, etc.
- Companies about which we write often: Apple, Google, Microsoft, DC, Marvel, Disney, Steam, Lenovo, Asus, Samsung, Paizo, Wizards, Tor, etc.
- People about whom we write often: Wil Wheaton, Neil Gaiman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gene Roddenberry, Mark Hamill, George Lucas, etc.
- Topics about which we write often but don’t have a category.
- Conventions we attend as press every year: Those could have two tags: The convention name and the convention name plus year.
- Console Systems: Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation, Playstation 4, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo DS.
- Certain product categories about which we write often: PC, tablet, earbuds, keyboards, mice, organizers, Mac, iOS, Windows, Android, etc.
- This is not a complete list. If you don’t see a tag type in the approved list above, please ask before using it.
When in Doubt, Tag @jules in #site in Slack.
If you have any questions about the use of tags, please feel free to tag @jules in the #site channel. As people ask specific questions about specific tags, this guide will be updated.
