How to Use Tags in Joomla to Organize Content

Tags let you group content across categories. An article can be in one category but have many tags. For example, a "Roofing" category article could be tagged "Storm damage" and "Commercial."

Tags vs. categories

• Categories are your main structure. Each article has one.
• Tags are extra labels that cut across categories. An article can have several.

Keep your list of tags short and consistent. Lots of near-duplicate tags ("SEO," "Seo tips," "Search") make them less useful.

Create tags

From the Tags screen:

1. Go to Components > Tags.
2. Click New.
3. Enter a Title, and optionally a description and image.
4. Click Save & Close.

Or while editing an article: type a new tag in the Tags field and press Enter.

You can nest tags under a Parent tag if you need groups.

Add tags to articles

1. Open the article (Content > Articles).
2. In the right panel, use the Tags field. Start typing to pick an existing tag.
3. Save.

To tag several articles at once, tick them in the article list and use Batch in the Actions menu.

Show tagged content on your site

• Menu item: create a menu item of type Tags > Tagged Items (or Compact List of Tagged Items or List All Tags). See How to Change Menus and Navigation in Joomla.
• Modules: Tags - Popular shows commonly used tags, and Tags - Similar shows related content on an article page. See Joomla Modules Basics: Positions, Assignments, and Visibility.
• On articles: the article's Options tab has a Tags setting to show or hide tags.

Keep tag pages out of search results

Tag listing pages often repeat content found elsewhere, so it's usually best to keep them out of search engines:

• On a tag menu item's Metadata tab, set Robots to noindex, follow. This covers the pages that menu item shows, not every tag page on the site.
• For other tag pages, set Robots on each tag's Publishing tab (Components > Tags, open the tag).

Clean up tags

• Components > Tags shows how many items use each tag.
• Merge duplicates by retagging articles, then trash the extra tag.

Related

• How to Set Up and Use Joomla Smart Search
• How to Add a Blog Post or News Item in Joomla
• How to Change a Page's SEO Title and Meta Description in Joomla

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