Tools/How To

Why Tag?

When you add tags, you basically also put links to your article on other inside sections on the site. We have inside pages for all the tags we have in our directory. Articles move off the front of these inside sections much more slowly than our primary front page. When search or browse our website, they will often go to the inside sections.

Check out the table of contents and explore it. See how it offers you tags to click on that take you to tag sections inside the site. Adding extra tags spreads your article around to more of those inside sections, keeping the article alive longer.

We believe that the tagging system, with easy to find and use inside sections, makes a big difference in the way our visitors use the OpEd News site. They view more pages and stay longer on the site. That's a very desirable thing for websites.


Some tips on tagging:
Quickly pick and check off the tags that are suggested in the middle column.
Then, type in some tags you would also like to add, in the left hand column. Use one word, preferably. If you want to list hillary clinton, just type in hillary. If you want to reach harry REid, just type in reid. If you want to find weapons of mass destruction, type in destruction, and possibly, WMD.  You'll get better, more reliable hits that way.

Don't forget to use locale tags too. Remember, the "breadcrumb trail" is brown for locales.

If you're going to add a tag, please be parsimonious. We are not looking for the most tags. We want strong tags that fill gaps, but that will also attract a lot of articles. So, if you are writing about toxic spinach or toxic toys, don't create a separate tag for each. Do a search for Toxic. Try to use that. If there is no general tag, then create a Toxic tag. Don't create one for toxic spinach and aother for Toxic toys.

Now, if you search for a keyword and you don't find it, make sure you are searching on one word, even if you are looking for a person. Then, make sure you've spelled it right.

I get an email each time a person adds a new tag, and, since I had to literally assign each of the 6,000+ subjects we had in the old system to the new tagging directory, I know pretty well, whether a tag exists or not. We've designed the system to I can merge new tags, that could have been put somewhere else, with the more appropriate tag. So, you may find that your tag disappears or is moved.

Soon, we'll be adding the ability for editors and trusted authors to add tags to articles submitted by others.