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Hello:
Once upon a time, I thought I'd like to sort my post topics in a hierarchical fashion under "categories". Now, I realize that I'm more confused/don't really care between "categories" and "tags". Since most other blogging platforms use "tags" only, can we eliminate "categories" and keep things simple by utilizing "tags" only?
Thanks.
The blog I need help with is thebloggingpath.wordpress.com.
The way wordpress is structured, each post has to have at least one category, but you can make one general category, set that as your default category under settings > writing and then just forget about it and work with tags. You can delete all of your categories except for the default you set at settings > writing.
The one thing to know though is that the search engines do not see categories and tags as different things and treat them exactly the same. You could think of categories as specialized tags for organizing posts.
"You can delete all of your categories except for the default you set at settings > writing."
I know. But I cannot edit my posts using "categories" as one of the "post form" option to filter.
"[...] the search engines do not see categories and tags as different things and treat them exactly the same."
Exactly! It would be nice for WordPress.com would do the search engines a favor by eliminating "categories".
"You could think of categories as specialized tags for organizing posts."
I know. My blog stats indicate little to no activities on actual clicks for topics found under either "categories" or "tags".
Tags and categories work identically at WP.com as far as search engines are concerned. Categories are more useful because the Category widget lists ALL categories, not just the 45 most used, like the Tag Cloud does.
Ultimately, if one is to be eliminated, it'd be more practical to eliminate tags.
Go to settings > writing and set a default category of your choosing.
Go to posts > categories and delete all categories except for the default. All existing posts that are not assigned to the default category will then be moved over and into that default category.
Categories are a must for certain things. If they eliminated them, it would severely limit the usefulness of wordpress.
Personallly I virtually never use tags. Too messy and too often I end up with multiple versions of one tag (singular, plural, misspelled). As raincoaster says, if one were eliminated I would vote for tags.
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flynnblog
