With the release of the latest version of WordPress 2.3 came the added functionality of tagging. I’ve recieved several emails and questions from client to clarify what tagging is, exactly. The most popular question by far:

Why use tags when I can use categories? Aren’t they, essentially, the same thing?

Yes…. and no. I look at it this way - I can use tags to further describe and archive my posts by topic, but I don’t have to have a super huge long category/subcategory listing mucking up my theme and the tag clouds are trendy at the moment - so what the heck? Tags also get indexed with the rel=”tag” attribute, making them attractive to tag crawling services like Technorati and search engines, like Google, because tags are treated like keywords (because of the rel=”tag attribute).

I used to use Bunny’s Technorati Tag plugin prior to WordPress 2.3 - - and the new 2.3 version gave me a handy converter so I could convet all my Bunny Technorati Tag to WordPress tags - - it also gives you a nice converter for Ultimate Tag Warrior and away to convert your current WordPress categories to tags. Looks like they covered everything.

Why would anyone want to use tags instead of categories on a WordPress blog? It’s a matter of choice really..personal preference and all that.

In your WordPress admin. panel, you’ll now see an area beneath the post edit window where you can input tags - separated by commas. (Find it by clicking the Write tab in the main menu). You simply input your tags before you publish and walla: Tags!

But how to display them?

Well, if you’re using a Widgetized theme (and really, in this day and age - who isn’t?) - you can use the handy Tag Cloud widget to display a tag cloud in your sidebar.

You can display them underneath your post by adding this bit of code into your template (within the Loop):

<?php the_tags(); ?>

The available parameters for the the_tags() template tag here in the WordPress Codex: Template tags - the_tags

You can also display a tag cloud elesewhere in your theme, other than your sidebar. For instance, on the xMark Theme - the Sitemap now has a tag cloud included. As does the xMark 404 Error page.

The template tag used to display the tag cloud is as follows:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(); ?>

The available parameters for the wp_tag_cloud template tag here in the WordPress Codex: Template tags - wp_tag_cloud

No problem. The easiest way is to create a new template and name it: tag.php. This becomes the primary template for displaying any tag. Display the tag currently being browsed by placing this template tag as the title of the page:

<?php single_tag_title('Currently browsing '); ?>

An example would be my tag page for the Blog Design tag - you can see the name of the tag is pulled into the top of the page, so visitors always know where they are at.

• Tags Manager - This plugin changes this behaviour and adds a page under Management>Tags. Here you can manage your tags!
• Tags4Pages - This plugin allows you to insert tags to pages too and not only to posts.
• PB-Techtags is filter for WordPress (2.3+) that adds an image with a link to Technorati to each tag.
• Technorati Tag Cloud - This plugin allows the user to display a Technorati tag cloud instead of the native tags in WordPress 2.3. It uses WordPress 2.3’s native tagging/taxonomy system. The formatting of the output is the same as of the native tag cloud system: wp_techtag_cloud();

So.. yea - have fun tagging!