Can I just ask: who uses Technorati tags either on their blogs or to search for blogs? Ages ago I 'claimed' my blog on Technorati, but don't use the tags on my posts cos it seems a bit labourious, but I'm now wondering if it helps people find my blog, or readers search for specific articles better it might be worth it?
Apart from technorati tags, are there any better ways of archiving posts in blogger? I have so many posts now and would love to be able to sort them into catagories by type of recipe etc rather than just by date!
This Post was written by Fahara from Souperior
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I use the tags quite religiously and get a significant amount of traffic from Technorati. If you write about similar things often, in Blogger you can add the tags to the post template (under settings/formatting in Dashboard) and then they will automatically show up. I have all the tags I might use regularly in my post template and then when I start a new post I just delete the ones that don't apply. Much easier than typing them in by hand.
You can also easily copy them over from a previous post.
I also highly recommend using the "blogs that link here" part of Technorati to track incoming links. If you check it regularly, when someone links to you it gives you the option of going to that blog and leaving a comment right away. I always try to thank people who say nice things about my blog, and without Technorati I wouldn't be able to find them nearly as quickly. This is a setting you choose when you claim your blog and it automatically shows up wherever you put the tecnorati icon on the sidebar.
Thanks kalyn! I've just found a Greasemonkey script that works with blogger to easily embed Technorati tags too: http://consumingexperience.blogspot.com/2005/12/updated-multiple-word-technorati-tag.html - even easier than having them saved into the template!
I'd still like to hear what other people think too!
You can RSS the Technorati feed for who links here too ...
Ditto on what Kalyn said. I also use tags and get quite a bit of traffic from Technorati, and the "blogs that link here" function is very helpful.
(For WordPress users) WordPress has a plugin called AutoMeta which will automatically generate tags based on the content of a post, although I've found it to be a bit of overkill since it often pulls out random words that don't represent the main idea behind a post. I usually end up deleting a bunch of the tags and adding my own before publishing.
I don't know if I get much traffic as a result of using tags (I don't do Technorati, but native ones to my blog that Technorati recognizes).
I do actually have several technorati tags that I have on an RSS watchlist, so I can say that I'm one of those readers who enjoys finding new blogs based on content tags.
I use an ad hoc archiving method that works like this:
1) Create an "index post" that has a number of categories that use the name tag, e.g., {a name="Events"} (replacing the { with <, of course ). These categories can be used in drop down menus and other widgets in your template.
2) As you complete a post, assign some categories that point to the appropriate "name" tag on the index post by putting the right html at the bottom of the post. For example, "Indexed under Baking"
3) After publishing the post, get the URL, open the index file, and paste it in the appropriate places on the index file.
4) Republish the index file.
It's a little convoluted, but it works for me.
I like Kalyn's idea for a pre-tagged template, and will have to give that a try.
Unless you are using Beta Blogger, there is no way to create auto-tags.
Kalyn / others who are familiar with coding: After going into Template -> Edit current -> could you please tell me what code to put into template so that the TAG code comes in as part of template while creating new post? I find it very tiresome to write the code for each post.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Hi Nandita, what you need to do is sign into your Blogger blog, click on Settings and then on Formatting (not on Template). Scroll down to the bottom of the screen to the box for Post Template. In that box you can insert your Technorati code, which will appear every time you write a new post. The easy way to do it is to create some simple categories that apply to all your posts, such as "food" or "recipes," and then when you write individual entries change them or copy and paste to add more as needed.
Here is a tag from my Post Template box:
Tags: [a style="FONT-STYLE: italic" href="http://technorati.com/tag/vegan" rel="tag"][span style="font-size:78%;"]vegan[/span][/a]
Just replace the brackets with < and > and the word "vegan" (in two places) with whatever tag you want to use. Copy, paste, and change it to add multiple tags. In mine, I also include code to make the font smaller that the rest of the post.
Hope that makes sense.
Thanks to everyone who commented on this topic. I was in the same boat as Fahara, not using technorati tags to their full advantage. I'm going to paste Susan's code into my blog template.
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