A new capability since our upgrade of WordPress is the tagging feature. Tags are like categories: labels to describe the post. But unlike categories, tagging is free-form; you can use any words or phrases you like, whether or not they’ve been previously used. Just as with categories, clicking on a tag label will show other posts bearing that tag. So it’s a great way to find similar content without having to search on a particular term. Searching doesn’t always work well, as a post might contain the search term without it being very characteristic of the post content.

You’ll notice in the sidebar (possibly scrolling down a bit) a list of recent tags, with their frequency indicated by intensity of blue and font size. That provides a snapshot of recent topics which can be more informative than our sometimes cryptic post titles. Clicking any of these also brings you to a list of posts so tagged.

So far, I’ve tagged just my last few posts to show how it works. We need some other tags in there! Feel free to go back and tag any old posts, and use tags if you like for future posts. On the post edit page, tags are added immediately below the compose area, right next to the category assignment list.

I hope tags will offer an easier way to find posts of interest and ones related to a post you’ve enjoyed. Let’s see if it works out that way. Meanwhile, any comments or suggestions would be appreciated!