How much do you care about blog tags?

Occasionally I feel that my collection of tags is somewhat lacking. For instance, I’ve been thinking of adding “language design” and “public speaking” tags – and then going through previous posts and retagging where appropriate.

However, I’d rather not do this if no-one actually uses tags in the first place. I know that I find the tags on Eric Lippert’s blog incredibly handy when I’m going back to look for a particular article, but I suspect that’s mostly because Eric’s blog is so quotable in the first place.

Would it help any of you for me to be more comprehensive and historically accurate with my tags? If so, I’ll go ahead… otherwise I’ll waste some more time on Stack Overflow :)

10 thoughts on “How much do you care about blog tags?”

  1. Tags good. Elaborate, “comprehensive and historically accurate” tags? Probably not so much.

    Tags are great for providing a quick way to narrow down a search for a specific article or articles. But as you wind up with more detailed tagging, the number of tags gets so large that it becomes difficult to keep track of which category an article might be in.

    Being able to combine tags in the search, as this site allows, does mitigate that somewhat. But I think it will still be a pain just to try to find that one tag to start with if there start to be too many.

    So, keep up the tags, but don’t think you have to go overboard making extra little details for every possible article category. :)

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  2. I really only use tags when I’m trying to find a particular post I’ve already read. Other than that I don’t find them particularly useful.

    Although, I love to use them at will on my own blog so go figure :)

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  3. I rarely find tags useful and instead rely on a good search engine to find information. I’d keep wasting time on stackoverflow.

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  4. Only because you asked…

    (I’m loathe to complain, as you’re already providing a wonderful service pro bono.)

    I, for one, would appreciate better tagging. I have at times had difficulty in finding certain of your historical posts.

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  5. I have indeed used Eric Lippert’s tags a few times, and I’ve used your tags occasionally. They can be a good way to discover content that was written before I subscribed, or to find a series of related posts. I’m not sure if its really worth the effort retagging your archive, but please continue to tag your posts.

    Like

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