» posted on 9:20pm - June 03 2009 | posted by Lev

First of all, I thought I should address the big why here, since many of you may be wondering this:

Why tagging items is important:

1) Search engine optimization; all of the tags are used in the item's meta keywords to help better describe the page. This means search engines will be able to find pages much easier (and far more often) when items have a large list of relevant and helpful words and phrases.

2) Our "related items" feature: I've mentioned this in the past, but in case you haven't heard, sooner or later we will have a feature which gives you links to other items on the site that are related or similar to the one you are currently viewing. This will not be possible without the use of lengthy, descriptive and relevant keywords (tags).

3) A tag cloud, which highlights the most commonly used terms on the site. If you want your items to be found through these popular terms, and they are relevant, make sure you use them!

Hopefully, I've convinced you by now that tagging items is pretty crucial to a site's success, as well as its accessibility. Now, I thought I'd go over what you can do.

What can I do:

First and foremost, tag any or all of the items on the site that don't currently have tags. There are a butt load of them too, because the tag feature is fairly new (around 5000+ untagged items right now)!

Everyone who is a member of Tainted Thoughts can tag any item on TT! I know what some of you may be thinking (misuse or abuse), and I can assure you that it won't be an issue since every single tagging change is logged, so previous tags can be restored with ease - in the event of misuse. Fortunately, we are a pretty respectful group of people here so I don't see this as being an issue.

Here is a list of items that currently do not have any tags:

http://www.taintedthoughts.com/source.php?tagged=false

Of course, you are also more than welcome to improve the tags on items that may already have some, but you think could use improvement. If you add enough characters when updating tags, you are awarded AP in the same manner as if you were adding them!

Both adding tags and updating tags will earn you AP, so this is a pretty effective way to gain lots of AP (I myself have gained over 600 in the past day since I started this).

How can I tag items:

Tagging items is pretty simple, when you know what to do, that is. Every time you view an item, below the item's text/content, there is an "item management shortcut" pane. For section operators, admins and item owners, there are probably numerous other options in the "item management shortcut" pane, but for many of you, you may only see the tags field, which is fine because this is all you need!

As long as you are a member of TT (and are logged in while viewing the item), there will be a "tags" field in the "item management shortcut". This text field has a 255 character limit, which is probably more than most items will ever need.

Each tag should be separated with a comma (a space after the comma is optional but not necessary). If you do not use commas to separate the different tags, then the site will interpret it as one really long tag, which will mean it won't be helpful in anyway. Make sure to separate each word or phrase with a comma. You can use phrases (more than one word without a comma) as well, so you aren't restricted to using a single word for the tag.

After you have made the changes you want to the tags field, hit your ENTER KEY. This should call a javascript function and submit the data to the server and be updated then and there. You should see a message stating the tags are updated (for a brief second or two in the same field that has the tags) and then the message will go away and show the tags again. If you do not hit the enter key, or if you do not get a quick message saying the tags are updated, then they are not - in which case you may want to create a bug report or get in contact with me!

How can I tag items properly:

Take this item for example:

http://www.taintedthoughts.com/item/19805
(Meet Kaya, the TT server! (Server Specs))

Here is what poor tagging would look like:

web server, server

And here is what good tags could look like:

kaya, tt, tainted thoughts, tainted thoughts server, server, web server, linux, apache, asus, php, mysql, debian

Notice, how many more keywords are used, which are still relevant to the item, and could potentially be used on search engines or finding relating items on the site. The more descriptive the tags are, the better the results!

Keep in mind, an item's tags may not exceed 255 characters (don't bother counting, as your browser shouldn't let you enter more)!

Any questions or comments? Just post them here!

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