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1. steveeyes
   Member
   Mar 3, 2012, 10:24 PM

   I understand the concept of adding tags to a post. For each post you add your tags (keywords) to help search engines find that post.

   What doesn't make sense to me is why I would want to add tags under Posts - Tags - Add New Tag. What is the purpose of adding tags there? I can't see the logic. I thought if I added tags there, when i went to a post, these tags would be available as a selection, but they are not.

   Can anyone explain the logic of adding tags in this area. I have no idea what purpose they serve and where you can use them after you added them.

   The blog I need help with is steveeyes.wordpress.com.

2. timethief
   Member
   Mar 3, 2012, 10:29 PM

   Please note that we Volunteers answering support questions here on the forum that’s only for free hosted WordPress.com bloggers cannot assist any blogger who does not provide an active link starting with http:// to the blog, post or page in question. Please do that now.

   http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/tags/
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/tag-management/
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-tags/
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/tag-cloud-widget/
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/global-tags/

   This may interest you as well > Revisiting Keywords and Tags

3. steveeyes
   Member
   Mar 3, 2012, 11:31 PM

   I'm not sure what you are asking. Are you talking about this link:

   http://steveeyes.wordpress.com/

   Anyways, I appreciate your links above, but none of those helped. That was the problem. Before I posted here, I spent hours trying to understand the logic of why you would want to add tags in the area I described above. Understand, I get the logic of adding them to an individual post...again, I understand the logic of adding them to an individual post. What doesn't make sense is why would I want to add them Posts - Tags - Add New Tag in the admin section. Why add them there??????????

4. timethief
   Member
   Mar 3, 2012, 11:37 PM

   I'm not a software developer. I didn't develop the software we use here. I'm a blogger who volunteers to answer support questions. If you don't wish to use Tags then don't. They aren't required and neither are categories. Search spiders are focused on keywords in your post and page content. They aren't focused on categories or tags.

   I suspect only the WordPress developers and Staff will be able to answer your question, which you can direct to them on March 6th, when they reactivate this support link here http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/

5. justpi
   Member
   Mar 4, 2012, 7:14 AM

   The principal function of the Posts>Categories screen and the Posts>Tags screen is that they allow you to browse, edit and delete your existing categories and tags. Categories and tags are the same pool of data, so it's reasonable that these two dashboard screens look and work the same. But in contrast to categories, newly added tags aren't available when you create, edit, quick edit or bulk edit posts - perhaps because the tag cloud displays your most used tags only (if you have more than 45) and because tags are insignificant compared to categories. So you're right, the logic is defective.

   Personally I wouldn't correct this by making newly added tags available the way categories are: I would eliminate the add-new option from both screens, because it confuses inexperienced users who use the option and then complain that their categories or tags don't show up in the respective widgets.

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