Blog stopped getting included in searches
-
Hi, I’m a WP newb.
My blog was working fine (in that if you searched my tags, you’d see my respective posts somewhere in the blog results) but now none of the posts show up when one does a search using related tags. At some point a couple of my posts were even showing up at the top (ie: the John Mayer post), and now the same posts have stopped appearing completely.
I have a feeling I did something to the settings, but am not sure what. :(
I guess my question is, can WP block someone’s posts from appearing in tag searches?
And if so, what would be the reasons?
I ask b/c i wonder if i somehow violated some protocol i’m unaware of. Worth asking…Here’s the link in case that helps:
http://brainbites.wordpress.com/
Thanks!
~ bb -
-
I’ve just discovered a similar problem on my blog: http://amateursadventuresinart.wordpress.com .
Don’t know how long this has been a problem, but would explain why I’ve continued to get no traffic.
Best I can figure, the “Search WordPress blogs” feature is ONLY “seeing” words in the title. It appears to be completely ignoring my tags and categories.
Examples of searches:
“pink” or “soul armor” – esp. when using the “find recent posts” feature, finds my blog just fine. that’s because both of these words appear in recent post titles.
However, when I search “Caspiana” or “beginner’s art” – two fairly frequent tags on several of my posts, it finds absolutely nothing at all on the first, and doesn’t find my blog as a hit on the second one. Again, I’m choosing “most recent” as I know there are more popular (and therefore, more “relevant”?) blogs out there. I’ve tried other tag-terms as well, and it never seems to find my blog.
I’ve checked my Privacy under Settings and I DO have it set to “be visible to everyone” and have had it set that way since shortly after I began the blog. I even went back tonight and changed it once to “block traffic” and then reset again to “be visible to everyone” (and made sure to “save changes”) just in case it was “stuck” or something.
Suggestions? Hoping someone can help.
-
amateur – staff has said that if you have more than 12 tags and categories combined, you will not be included in the global tag pages. I think that is your problem.
-
Hmmm. OK. (and sorry for not finding the faq!) Maybe this is part of the problem, esp. on my most recent posts, but for example, on my post for 9/8 (referencing Aug. 27) – I have 10 total tag/categories combinations. One of which is “art and the soul” (WP blog search does not find my blog using that as search, under “most recent”).
also on my two posts for 9/7, again the total of tags/categories is less than 12. On both posts for 9/7 I use the term “Caspiana” as a tag. WP Blog search doesn’t find these posts when searching for that term.
I’ll go back and cleanup my most recent posts and will try to be more diligent about watching the number of tags/categories I use (sorry to hear of this limit, as I try to make mine as specific as possible. Somebody looking for Art as in Rembrandt and Picasso, for example, would be sorely disappointed if they came across my posts using that term!)
I understand, now, why my two most recent posts might be omitted from the WP search, but I don’t understand why these earlier posts would be, since they did not exceed the 12 category/tag limit.
Thanks.
-
Well, and I thought early on I had read something about tags providing an “unlimited” option. On the FAQ http://faq.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/the-difference-between-tags-and-categories/ it actually says “no limit on the number of tags”. I guess they must mean “overall” – as in, for my entire blog – but sure would be nice if Staff could clarify this matter.
Also, just realized from Sacredpaths’ reference to FAQ, guess the limit is 10, Vivian, instead of 12.
-
There is actually no limit to the number of tags you can assign to a post, but due to people abusing the tag system, staff has now limited it to around 12 combined if you want to be included on the global tags pages here. As I understand it, there were a good number of people who were assigning the same 80-100 tags to each post, regardless of whether they were appropriate for the post or not. I have personally seen posts where the list of tags and categories assigned was longer than the post itself by a considerable amount.
As far as the referenced FAQ, it says 10, but staff have said here in the forums on several occasions that 12 is OK. Personally I’ve never had a problem with 12.
-
So any clue as to why the posts that use fewer than 12 (or 10) are omitted from the WP Blog search? (see above)
-
-
In a whole blog you can use as many tags as you wish. You can literally have tes of thousands if you wished.
If your blog does not appear in tags or a particular post does not appear please get in touch and we will get it checked into.
-
My problem has been solved, and it is an easy explanation. the WP blog search box “looks for the title and content of the post, not the tags and categories” according to Nick at support.
- The topic ‘Blog stopped getting included in searches’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 