Both should never share the same name. It is unwise to use the same word or phrase as both a tag and a category as both will generate the same Title tag on a page and could cause duplication penalties. Here is a breakdown of the usage of both tags and categories in Wordpress.
Categories should have unique names and can have longer worded names. Categories help visitors find categorized information on your site. Use categories just like the name suggest, as site post categories. You might have XYZ news, XYZ reviews, XYZ new products, XYZ recalls and etc.
Tags should be more specific names and should be short one or two word keywords. Tags help visitors find related specific information on your site and on other sites. Some tag examples would be Model#1234, Model#5678, Brand ABC, Brand DEF and etc.
I have learned the hard way on this and myself have created both tags and categories using the same name.
3 comments:
Thanks for putting this out there! I guess I have made the mistake of using one for both...Now, I hope I can go fix it, since it is a relatively new site, and not be penalized for the the duplicate meta title tag! Thanks again Soggy...I am constantly learning great things on your blog!
I appreciate all of the great information here. I am a BANS user but also have several wp blogs outside of BANS.
If I have already gotten my categories going incorrectly, how do you recommend that I proceed? I don't want to break my links.
I am already using permalinks Deans PL Migration and YLSY permalink redirect, to fix permalink issues from a year ago.
Can you suggest what I might do?
Again, thanks so much for the great content here.
Cathy,
I would just make sure going forward to use a better choice of categories. It is a ton of work to change and redirect especially if it is heavily blogged on.
Dave
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