The most recent post on keywords and tags brought an interesting comment.  No – you won't find the comment attached to that post.  Why?  It was rude, rude, rude.  A lesson – if you are going to comment on someone's post and disagree (which I encourage if you have a valid point) DON'T BE RUDE.

Anyway – here's the point he made -

Actually, WordPress post tags, ARE NOT keywords out of the box.  They are simple taxonomies.  They are another way to categorize and sort your content.  The main goal of post tags deal more with how you fine tune your query post/loop.

Of course, he went on from there trying to be very technical so I would be impressed and then it became rude.  But his statement is not even accurate.

Here is the very boring blurb (skip this if you find it boring but do read the end of the post) about taxonomies from Wikipedia:

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word finds its roots in the Greek τ?ξις, taxis (meaning 'order' or 'arrangement') and ν?μος, nomos (meaning 'law' or 'science'). Taxonomy uses taxonomic units, known as taxa (singular taxon).

In addition, the word is also used as a count noun: a taxonomy, or taxonomic scheme, is a particular classification ("the taxonomy of …"), arranged in a hierarchical structure. Typically this is organized by supertype-subtype relationships, also called generalization-specialization relationships, or less formally, parent-child relationships. In such an inheritance relationship, the subtype by definition has the same properties, behaviors, and constraints as the supertype plus one or more additional properties, behaviors, or constraints. For example: car is a subtype of vehicle, so any car is also a vehicle, but not every vehicle is a car. Therefore a type needs to satisfy more constraints to be a car than to be a vehicle. Another example: any shirt is also a piece of clothing, but not every piece of clothing is a shirt. Hence, a type must satisfy more parameters to be a shirt than to be a piece of clothing.

And here is what WordPress itself had to say:

Are categories and tags hierarchical?
Categories can be arranged in a hierarchy (see the categories widget page to learn more). Tags, however, exist in their own right and have no set relationship to anything else. (emphasis mine)

So what is my point?  When you disagree with someone and comment make sure you know what you are talking about AND be polite about it.  I would have happily approved his comment and pointed out where he was wrong if he had been polite and respectful.

Cathy Perkins – The WordPress Wizard

It's been awhile since I talked about keywords vs. tags.  Perhaps a refresher is in order.

I know you hear keywords, keywords, keywords.  But when you get into your WordPress editor, where do you put them?  Let's see – there is nowhere that says 'Add Keywords Here'.

You will see a place to check Category but categories are not tags or keywords.  I will talk about categories in another post.  So where do you put your keywords?

Look on the right side of your WordPress editor screen and you will see this:

But that says Post Tags, not Keywords.  They are the same.  Some people call them tags and most guru types call them keywords as in 'Do your keyword research', 'Use good keywords', 'Google wants relevant keywords'. So don't be confused – tags and keywords mean the same thing.

And remember, tags/keywords go on EVERY post and EVERY page. 

Cathy Perkins – The WordPress Wizard