Categories, tags, trackbacks, pings — Why display them?

[Carla the Moose]

I'm trying to understand some of the things I see on people's websites and determine if I should have them, too.

For example, I see categories and tags listed at the bottom of blog posts. Categories are also often listed in the sidebar. Does it help traffic or encourage clicks if you display the categories you've assigned to different posts?

And what about tags? That one I don't see as often. What's the usefulness of displaying them?

I've read a bit about trackbacks, but I don't understand them. Can someone explain them in laymen's terms and why I need them enabled on my website?

Thanks!

[Brad Dalton]

You can remove or add links for posts meta (category and tags) by installing the Genesis Simple Edits plugin.

Categories are like the index in a book and tags are used to group together highly related content.

Read more here http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/09/09/categories-versus-tags-whats-the-difference-and-which-one/

Here's some info on trackbacks http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-why-and-how-tos-of-trackbacks-and-pingbacks-in-wordpress/

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

[Carla the Moose]

Thanks for the links. I followed the advice in the WP Beginner article and turned off link notifications from other blogs. They said 99% of the notifications are usually spam, so I followed their advice and turned it off.

And from the other article, I learned that tags aren't used by SEO or Google. Am I understanding that correctly? You can easily add tags to each post, and I always thought the primary purpose was SEO, but apparently it's more of a service for readers.

So does this mean I don't need to add tags? It won't in any way affect rankings, traffic, SEO, Google, etc.?

I can add tags to my comments in this forum. That helps people find what they're looking for, but it does nothing outside of this forum, right?

[Brad Dalton]

Tags create another archive and group related content within a category together.

Example:

Category 'Plugins'
Tagged with 'SEO Plugins'

You don't need tags. Nothing outside the forum or your site if you have added them there.

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Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

[Carla the Moose]

Thank you. I always thought they were important, but if they're not, I'm not going to use them.

[Carla the Moose]

I wanted to follow up with something I just learned about tags.

They do have some value. You don't have to display them, but if you add tags to your posts, the popular TweetMeme Button plugin will grab them and create automatic hashtags for you. That's a nice time-saving feature.

🙂

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