Tags versus Categories – confusion reigns

  • the_monkeyboy

    (@the_monkeyboy)


    15 years, 3 months ago

    I’m rebuilding my movie review website in WordPress, ready for a relaunch. I’ve been out of the website game for a a couple of years, and of course a lot of things have changed.

    My main confusion lies in when to use a categories in favour of tags, and vice versa.

    For example, I’ll have two main categories: “Blog” and “Film Reviews”. Now, I’m tempted to break my Film Reviews category down further, putting movie reviews into genre, one for each rating I give a movie (a total of 5 sub catergories from 1 star to 5 star).

    After that, I’m unsure. I’d like to have the Film Review posts searchable by actor, director, screenwriter, certificate etc. Would it be better to tag the posts in this instance? I would end up with a hell of a lot categories, if I had one for each actor and so on.

    I’m utterly confused by it all, and unsure which is the best route to take. I’d be grateful if anyone could share some insight.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • myinstinctwaswrong

    (@myinstinctwaswrong)

    15 years, 3 months ago

    your plan sounds good. I would say use categories/sub-categories either like you outlined, or perhaps by genre – or both!

    then use the tags for more details like actor names, genre, rating, director, screenwriter, rating (PG, etc), etc.

    that way you have a few categories – 10-20? – but you can have loads of tags.

    just my 5 cents

    iridiax

    (@iridiax)

    15 years, 3 months ago

    If you are planning on doing anything fancy like displaying posts based on multiple factors or hierarchies, then use categories.

    redsoxmaniac

    (@redsoxmaniac)

    15 years, 1 month ago

    I think you are in the right direction. Tags are usually for data that is numerous ( such as thousands of directors ) or complementary to multiple categories ( such as someone who you may talk about in your “blog” and your review.)

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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