Tags bad for SEO?

There was a thread on the vBulletin forum suggesting that the new 3.7 tags might be unhelpful for SEO because it uses the search function. I don't really see why that is a problem - I presume that it will only look for matching tags, rather than doing a general search for that phrase.

So I guess the issue is whether it will produce duplicate content or not. I would have thought that the combination of threads would be sufficiently different from anything else.

I assumed that tags would create nicely themed SEO pages.

Does anyone have a better knowledge of this?

The tags will be somewhat useful to add relevant text to the page.

However, use of the search function does limit it's SEO capabilities somewhat.

Hello Bob ,

Tags are not bad for SEO , however the way Jelsoft did is seriously bad for SEO.

I am still not sure that I understand the problem. Is it the forwarding from one URL to another that makes the SEO friendly URLs a problem?

Or is it that they are presented as search results? Can't that be fixed with a little tweaking of the search result template, or even a new template for tag results?

Couldn't we make our own tags search page and just do a redirect on all calls to the search tags function?

Hi Bob ,

Let me try to explain this more beriefly.

When search engines index your site they look for static links on your site. A normal tag system always need for static links for example rock konular? This is a static link and it will not change in any condition. So this system is build up correctly.

However with the new tags Jelsoft prepared everything is wrong. Because they integrated the tag system with search function. Every tag link you follow will be redirected to a search id. search.php?do=findtag&tag=rock can be rewritten as tag/rock/ however if you click on the link it will take you to search.php?searchid=xxx . This way there is no meaning to get tags installed because the searchid's will change constantly. Wayne suggested to cache search results for a year but it won't help since what will happen after 1 year.

As Freddie commented within Tag suggestion thread they will consider changing the structure but they didn't inform us how they plan to do that. I hope they will follow a route that zoints did. Otherwise the whole tag system will be useless for me and i personally will not use it.

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

However with the new tags Jelsoft prepared everything is wrong. Because they integrated the tag system with search function. Every tag link you follow will be redirected to a search id. search.php?do=findtag&tag=rock can be rewritten as tag/rock/ however if you click on the link it will take you to search.php?searchid=xxx . This way there is no meaning to get tags installed because the searchid's will change constantly.

Thanks you very much for explaining - I understand now. Can we just bypass their search function and create our own? Then just alter the tag links to point to our new tag search instead.

I suppose that we haven't seen how the tags are stored in the database yet, so it will depend upon that.

Currently zoints is a good working system , however we must see how Jelsoft will change the tag system. If they seperate it within search function than i may choose to use that system. If not i also will request a tag system from vBSEO

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

Currently zoints is a good working system , however we must see how Jelsoft will change the tag system. If they seperate it within search function than i may choose to use that system. If not i also will request a tag system from vBSEO

If tags are good for SEO, then VBSEO should be the one
to do it. I do not think zoints is supported anymore. Might
as well have a tag system up-to-date and supported.

tags can go both ways.

if you limit tags and moderate them to a couple key terms, they can help out a lot.
if you don't limit them, you can easily spill a million useless tags to the SE's, thus spreading out your possible SERP

Originally Posted by briansol

tags can go both ways.

if you limit tags and moderate them to a couple key terms, they can help out a lot.
if you don't limit them, you can easily spill a million useless tags to the SE's, thus spreading out your possible SERP

If you have a trucking forum, whats the point if a key term
came up "coffee" or "bikes" or something that has nothing
to do with trucking...

so allow moderation, once approved by admin, then the
terms can be posted in the tags.

vBulletin.com updated the tags , the new syetem looks perfect

vBulletin Community Forum - View Single Post - [3.7] Combined Tag Suggestion Thread.

And the updated tagging system is now running here. A short list of the changes:

• Tags.php?tag=x used for showing tags assigned to threads. No search IDs. Doesn't require search permissions. Will see how this performs here.
• Tags.php for the tag cloud and a form to find tags. (It's also 1 function call to get the tag cloud--though you need a helper template--so it'll be trivial to add anywhere you want.)
• User tracking of tags. Users can remove the tags they applied. Mods can see who applied the tags as well.
• Full AJAX editing of tags (mods don't need a separate page to remove the tags as before).
• Limits of number of tags users can specify per thread. Separate for thread starter and others. (As before, there are seperate permissions for who can tag a thread, thread starter or others.)
• Minimum tag length. (There was a maximum tag length; I actually just forgot this.)
• Tags can't be stop words.
• Option to lower case tags on submission.
• Tags in meta keywords. (That was just an oversight.)

Hopefully that should make most people happy.

I don't use tags because I don't feel like correcting them when my users screw up and I don't want a bunch of incorrect tags diluting my SERPs

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

vBulletin.com updated the tags , the new syetem looks perfect

vBulletin Community Forum - View Single Post - [3.7] Combined Tag Suggestion Thread.

And the updated tagging system is now running here. A short list of the changes:

• Tags.php?tag=x used for showing tags assigned to threads. No search IDs. Doesn't require search permissions. Will see how this performs here.
• Tags.php for the tag cloud and a form to find tags. (It's also 1 function call to get the tag cloud--though you need a helper template--so it'll be trivial to add anywhere you want.)
• User tracking of tags. Users can remove the tags they applied. Mods can see who applied the tags as well.
• Full AJAX editing of tags (mods don't need a separate page to remove the tags as before).
• Limits of number of tags users can specify per thread. Separate for thread starter and others. (As before, there are seperate permissions for who can tag a thread, thread starter or others.)
• Minimum tag length. (There was a maximum tag length; I actually just forgot this.)
• Tags can't be stop words.
• Option to lower case tags on submission.
• Tags in meta keywords. (That was just an oversight.)

Hopefully that should make most people happy.

so the tag system is already in VBSEO, or its just
being used at VBseo?

Neither. It is now a new feature for the 3.7 system of vbulletin.