Differences Between Category and Tag in WordPress

The first time you make a post in WordPress, you'll see there Category and Tags. Both have the same function, namely to split your posts into certain topics.

But what is the difference between categories and tags?

When do we use categories, when we use the tag?

Let us discuss each of sense:

Category

As the name implies, a category used to split the post into a particular category.

Suppose you have a website which contains recipes for food and drink. These recipes you want to divide into categories such as "appetizer", "main course", and "dessert".

Thus, visitors who want to make a dessert can get into the category of dessert.
And so on.

We can also create sub-categories are more specific. For example, in the category "dessert" we have a sub-category of "ice cream".

A post can be inserted into more than one category, but you can not make a post without having one selected category. Thus, this category passable mandatory.

Tag

We use tags to mark the post into certain topics. Topics in this tag is more specific to the content of your post.

Let's use the example above:

If you have a website about food recipes. Examples of tags that we can use is one of the ingredients of the recipe.

For example a chicken dish tagged chicken.

Thus, visitors who want to make a chicken dish (apart from the cuisine category) can enter the tag of chicken that we have created.

Just like categories, the purpose of the tag is to facilitate visitors to navigate your site. A post can also be given more than one tag.

The difference, the tag is not required to such a category.

How to give a great category and tags for SEO?

It is often asked related categories and tags in WordPress. Is better category for the search engines? Is better tag? How much should we make the tag.

The answer: no effect.

In the communities of SEO, you will sometimes see some people recommend using a lot of tags that contain the keyword for the post.

Do not do like this.

There are two reasons:
First, it has no effect. Using the tag 100 will not affect your rankings in the search engines.

Second, even interfere with visitors.

As we discussed earlier, marking the tag function post into specific topics. If the post or the entirety of your website there are too many tags, so visitors will actually confused.

"Too much" is how?

Depending on the size of your site and the topic. But in a post should not be more than 5 tags.

Again, use tags and categories to facilitate visitors to navigate your site. Not exactly difficult.

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