Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Tags vs. Categories? What should I use?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Tags vs. Categories? What should I use?

    On-Page Optimization
    6
    6
    2613
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Shalin.TJ
      Shalin.TJ last edited by

      I'm starting with a blog (self-hosted wordpress) and I'm thinking of the following content structure so that the readers are easily able to locate relevant content:

      Background:

      It's a blog which gives people relevant info about government jobs. To start with we will just be publishing information about these jobs but over a period of time also intend to post content that helps readers prepare for these jobs. In other words, right now it's just about detailed job notifications but in the coming months, we shall also post about preparation-related information.

      Typically, each of the job notifications can be bifurcated like:

      • Jobs basis industry

      • Banking

      • Railways

      • Clinical, etc.

      • Jobs basis company

      • ABC co.

      • DEF co.

      • XYZ co. etc.

      • Jobs basis State / City

      • City 1

      • City 2, etc.

      • Jobs basis educational qualification

      • Graduation

      • Post-Graduation, etc.

      Now, I'm seriously confused how should I structure this data from the perspective of Categories & Tags such that it's reader as well as SEO-friendly. Do note that each of the government jobs post ideally falls in a couple of above mentioned categories.

      Thanks..

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • trung.ngo
        trung.ngo @Shalin.TJ last edited by

        Hi Shalin,

        Good news: you can do both! Assuming that it would allow you to segment content in a meaningful way for users. If tags won't make things better for users, I'd just go with categories for the sake of simplicity. But if it is useful for users, I'd do the following:

        Use categories as the primary method of organizing content, then leverage tags to provide further definition. But, here's the catch: as others have correctly noted, tag pages have the potential to produce thin content, so I'd recommend applying a noindex meta tag to all tag pages, as well as excluding it in the robots.txt file. If you're using one of the popular CMS platforms, like Wordpress, this should be fairly easy to do.

        This method provides the best of both worlds. You provide more ways for users to filter down to content they'd like to see and it's SEO-friendly because the tag pages--which may produce thin, duplicative content--are excluded from the index and crawl, and, therefore, should not present any SEO issues.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Christy-Correll
          Christy-Correll Staff last edited by

          Hi there, you've received some solid advice. I'd also check out this class post by Dan Shure, which explains the difference between different types of WordPress pages, and spells out best-practices for WordPress SEO - http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success.

          Christy

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • David-Kley
            David-Kley last edited by

            While the tagging system is nice, it can be a killer for seo. Tag pages generally have thin content, and a lot of links i.e. bad for Googel guidelines. If you want to help your users, and still use the tagging system, set the tagging pages to "no-index"

            As to the categories URL's I would add them. Think of your site like a book, and your categories like the chapters. Setting your site up with categories also allows you to potentially have another focus keyword in your URL, and helps users navigate your site easier

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Shalin.TJ
              Shalin.TJ @irvingw last edited by

              Thanks for the reply..

              I get it what you are trying to put across. In fact, prior to posting the question above, I did read a lot about categories and tags as taxonomies and how they ought to be used. But the question is still the same? In the scenario I mentioned above, what's the ideal way to categorise content?

              trung.ngo 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • irvingw
                irvingw last edited by

                I would refrain from using tag pages. Google does not like thin content pages and tag pages are typically just a set of links to other posts. Also, I have seen too many sites with too many unintended tags.  Category pages give you a lot more flexibility in terms of adding unique content and making them into pages worthy of ranking. Plus, category pages are in a controlled environment and there will not be any categories being accidentally formed.

                Shalin.TJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Safxmed

                  Filter By Category bad for seo?

                  on page optimization filter by category

                  Hello Everyone! I know that a single product should not have filter by color option since it will create duplicate content, and you have to use canonical tags to solve it. BUT how about sorting through products via category/brands?
                  Filter by category changes the URL of the General shop page (ex: hello.com/Shop/Category1022039 ). This page only displays the products within, no content/ descriptions etc unlike the original category page (ORIGINAL CATEGORY PAGE) Each of these category/brand already have their own individual pages (ex: hello.com/Shop/A). This is the page that will be optimized for content, FAQ, and ranking etc. Unlike in the url created when filtering through the categories. So technically I would have 2 URL for each Brand/Category. Would they compete with each other? What would you guys suggest. Please advise me on this. Thank You

                  On-Page Optimization | | Safxmed
                  0
                • Popidev

                  H1 tag positioning impact

                  Hello, I am currently working with a dev team to develop a new site. We have designed the title tags to sit below a banner image on each page but the technical team are insisting the h1 title tags must come above the banner for maximum SEO impact. I am sceptical about this, can anybody please shed some light and/or share any up to date resource on this? I have attached a side by side wireframe to illustrate the pages with the h1 tags in both positions. Thank you! HnWcLTx

                  On-Page Optimization | | Popidev
                  0
                • AliMac26

                  Is it OK to shorten your brand name in your title tags

                  If your title tag is over 55 characters, is it generally OK or good practice to abbreviate your brand name (at the end of the title tag) for the sake of the other keywords in the tag?

                  On-Page Optimization | | AliMac26
                  1
                • salvyy

                  No-index all the posts of a category

                  Hi everyone! I would like no-indexing all the posts of a specific category of my wordpress site. The problem is that the structure of my URL is composed without /category/: www.site-name.ext/date/post-name/
                  so without /category-name/ Is possibile to disallow the indexing of all the posts of the category via robots.txt? Using Yoast Plugin I can put the no-index for each post, but I would like to put the no-index (or disallow/) a time for all the post of the category. Thanks in advance for your help and sorry for my english. Mike

                  On-Page Optimization | | salvyy
                  0
                • SamCUK

                  How To Change Wordpress Category Title

                  My categories are indexed and I want to change the category page title. At present it just defaults to the category name but I want to set a different page title. For example I want the category to be 'Motor Cars' but I want the category page title to be 'Buy Motor Cars - New And Used'. How can I do this?

                  On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK
                  0
                • WebRiverGroup

                  Are H1 tags important or influential?

                  We are in the process of correcting our site in hopes that Google will rank us higher in the SERP. We have many pages that have multiple H1 tags or no H1 tag at all. How important is the H1 tag? Will it help us increase our ranking on Google? Thanks

                  On-Page Optimization | | WebRiverGroup
                  0
                • dgalassi

                  Multiple domains vs single domain vs subdomains ?

                  I have a client that recently read an article that advised him to break up his website into various URL's that targeted specific products. It was supposed to be a solution to gain footing in an already competitive industry. So rather than company.com with various pages targeting his products, he'd end up having multiple smaller sites: companyClothing.com companyShoes.com Etc. The article stated that by structuring your website this way, you were more likely to gain ranking in Google by targeting these niche markets. I wanted to know if this article was based on any facts. Are there any benefits to creating a new website that targets a specific niche market versus as a section of pages on a main website? I then began looking into structuring each of these product areas into subdomains, but the data out there is not definitive as to how subdomains are viewed by Google and other search engines - more specifically how subdomains benefit (or not!) the primary domain. So, in general, when a business targets many products and services that cover a wide range - what is the best way to structure the delivery of this info: multiple domains, single domain with folders/categories, or subdomains?  If single domain with folders/categories are not an option, how do subdomains stack up? Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions!

                  On-Page Optimization | | dgalassi
                  0
                • Lobtec

                  Best practice for Meta-Robots tag in categories and author pages?

                  For some of our site we use Wordpress, which we really like working with. The question I have is for the categories and authors pages (and similiar pages), i.e. the one looking: http://www.domain.com/authors/. Should you or should you not use follow, noindex for meta-robots? We have a lot of categories/tags/authors which generates a lot of pages. I'm a bit worried that google won't like this and leaning towards adding the follow, noindex. But the more I read about it, the more I see people disagree. What does the community of Seomoz think?

                  On-Page Optimization | | Lobtec
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.