Technorati tags, yay or nay?

[Lemmy]

I have a plugin that I use to add Technorati tags below my posts like this. Do any of you more experienced bloggers implement this kind of tagging? Do you think it's more of a traffic leak than a traffic generator? I do get some traffic from it, but I'm starting to think it may be of the freeloading kind.

[virgohippy]

If you're going to have tags on your posts you're probably better off having them point to your own internal tag pages. Technorati doesn't care where you link to, as long as the URL/tag structure is right.

I see you're using wordpress, so Ultimate Tag Warrior can take care of this for you.

Consider "noindex" those pages though, as they do add a lot of duplicate content pages.

[Lemmy]

I guess I'll have to take another shot at UTW. I've looked into it a couple of times before and found it difficult to understand.

But you're right of course, if Technorati doesn't care it's pointless having so many links out that do nothing for me.

[virgohippy]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

I guess I'll have to take another shot at UTW. I've looked into it a couple of times before and found it difficult to understand.

But you're right of course, if Technorati doesn't care it's pointless having so many links out that do nothing for me.

If you have any trouble figuring it out I imagine someone on the board can answer a simple question... or at least be curious enough to explore it for themselves if it's a tough one.

[webpimp]

I have tried using tech tags on a bunch of my blogs, but I could never seem to land much traffic with technorati. I dunno why??

[walrus]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

I guess I'll have to take another shot at UTW. I've looked into it a couple of times before and found it difficult to understand.

But you're right of course, if Technorati doesn't care it's pointless having so many links out that do nothing for me.

The hippy is right...of course. The problem with UTW is the documentation. It's just flat out intimidating.

The plug-in itself isn't that difficult to figure out and does some really cool things like adds your tags to your feeds, allows you to do related posts based on tags and can even add the tags as keywords on your post pages.

I would never use tags if I had to link to technorati as I believe a large portion of the traffic they do send is of the spammer type. But there is some anicdotal evidence that suggests that the SE's may in fact pay attention to them. I suspect it's a similar boost to say bolding your keywords but haven't tested any of the theories.

If you need some help with UTW, hit me up. I can get you running.

[Lemmy]

Thanks for the offer Walrus. When I get some spare time (right now I'm busy with BA and v.3 of BO) I'm definitely gonna have another crack at UTW. I just couldn't get my head around what the fuck it was supposed to do in the first place, and then I read something about converting my categories to tags and I freaked out and gave up. Simpletags thas was, well...simple, but too much of a traffic leak I think and I've stopped using it.

Anyway, If I get stuck again I'll hit you up.

[Lemmy]

So I had another go and I think I've got most of UTW to work, I even got the tag cloud in the sidebar.

I've got a couple questions though, and the last one is gonna make me look like an idiot.

1. What's the difference between tag.php and tags.php? I kind of understood the explanation for tags.php, installed it and it worked right off the bat, but I didn't quite understand tags.php so I just uploaded the one in the /example-bits folder to see what happened. Sure enough I got a page, but it was broken apart (surely just a matter of formatting somewhere). So should I use both or just one, and if just one, which is best?

2. What is the point of UTW? With Simpletags I got listings on Technorati and traffic back. Is the same true with UTW tagging or is it just to make my blog pretty and show that I'm one of the Web 2.0 gang?

[walrus]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

1. What's the difference between tag.php and tags.php? I kind of understood the explanation for tags.php, installed it and it worked right off the bat, but I didn't quite understand tags.php so I just uploaded the one in the /example-bits folder to see what happened. Sure enough I got a page, but it was broken apart (surely just a matter of formatting somewhere). So should I use both or just one, and if just one, which is best?

tag.php and tags.php both do different things and both are completely optional.

tag.php - When someone clicks on one of your tags, this is the template file that is first called to display the posts with that tag. It's there so that you can style the posts (if you want) differently than they way they look when you bring up a single post, an archive or your main blog. Most people don't bother with styling these differently and if you don't upload it, UTW will use the index.php instead.

tags.php - is a template for if you want to have a page listing all of your tags. In other words, its a page template.

Originally Posted by Lemmy

2. What is the point of UTW? With Simpletags I got listings on Technorati and traffic back. Is the same true with UTW tagging or is it just to make my blog pretty and show that I'm one of the Web 2.0 gang?

Technorati does not require a link back to it for it to recognize tags.

rel="tag">blonde</a>

Is the part of the link they care about and if, when they spider your site, they find that, they will include it.

[Lemmy]

Thanks for that explanation Walrus. It looks like I have enough ducks in a row to get this monster plugin working. But Jesus fucking Christ what a nightmare it is to navigate the jungle of plugins, widgets and addons. It's good to have someone like you around.