How to search for a specific tag
-
I know how to do a search for a tag (en.wordpress.com/tag/whatever/) but I keep getting either “none found” or hundreds of blogs that have no listed tag like the one I am searching for. How does one go about finding a blog entry that I know has been made using that tag and the tag I am entering is correct?
-
tom1950
Best protocol is to provide a link to your blog when asking a question here in the WordPress.com forums, starting with:
http://We are volunteers answering questions, but I’m a little bored, so with a little detective work, this appears to be your blog:
tom1950.wordpress.com/
BTW: You can link that to your name by following the instructions in #2 on this link:
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/7-things-to-know-before-posting-in-wordpresscom-forums?replies=1
Benefits there for you as well!Clicking on your tag “girls-vs-guys” below your post shows:
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/girls-vs-guys/Other than that, please be more specific with your question
-
-
OK. Sorry about that. My name here now shows a link.
I have a friend who was searching for one of my posts (“Alaska”) and emails me that it just couldn’t be found. I gave her several other tags for that post (“childhood”, “snow”, “the fifties”) and she still couldn’t find it. I made sure I was logged out (my friend does not have a WP account) and tried searching myself by using the “en.wordpress.com/tag/childhood” method. After about 15 pages of “childhood” entries, none of which had a tag of “childhood”, I was still unable to find my post.
It would also be very nice if the results page would tell you how many hits it found. Just clicking the “More…” simply loads a new page but doesn’t tell you how many in total you might have to click through.
So I guess my question boils down to: How would anyone locate my “Alaska” post without knowing my actual blog address and scanning back and forth through all my entries looking for the right one?
-
Your oldest post is March 26th, and there is a delay before blogs appear in the global tags pages. That is done to thwart spammers who start a bunch of blogs and then try to flood the tags pages with their offers for discount pharmaceuticals before staff can catch them. The exact length of the delay is unknown, but typically it seems to be around 10-14 days. Blame the spammers for the delay.
As far as search engines and such, it can take up to 6 weeks before the search engines find and index your blog. Typically it happens sooner, but it can be that long. Also, it takes time to build page rank with the search engines. Also, the tags that you use can have an effect. If you use popular tags such as “politics” or something like that, those tags can get hundreds of posts per hour so you might publish a post, go to the tag page, and find that you are already on the 4th or 5th page.
Keep writing posts, tag them appropriately and don’t over tag them. Again because of spammers, wordpress has instituted a limit on the total number of tags + cagetories you can use. Keep the total number at 12 or under and you will be fine. Example: 1 category + 11 tags = 12 total or 4 categories + 8 tags = 12 total.
-
One other suggestion: do not copy and paste directly from MS Word or it will end up messing up your blog. I noticed a couple posts on your blog that were pasted from Word.
http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/11/09/why-not-to-use-word/
Bringing content into WordPress from Microsoft Word [screencast]
-
I understand perfectly now. It makes sense that with an organization as large as WP time would have to pass before tage get propagated.
I noticed the ‘crazy formatting’ on my first two posts, so I changed to writing as a rich-text file and then saving it in plain vanilla .TXT format. This removes all vestiges of formatting and simply leaves each paragraph as a “blob”. I then cut/paste it into the WP editor and reformat anything that doesn’t look right. I go check the HTML side of the editor for strange stuff too.
Thanks for the info.
-
@tom, there is also a “paste from Word” icon on the lower tool bar (click on the “kitchen sink” icon at the right end of the top icon bar). The icon is a white rectangle with a “W” on it. It opens a window where you paste from Word and then click the insert button and it will clean up all the offending code that Word includes.
And you are welcome.
-
I see several of your recent posts here:
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/the-fifties/
There is no propagation delay (no more than it takes your post to publish). Not every post is included on every tag page however, particularly in the case of very busy tags.
-
I can see them now. When I first did that VERY SAME tag three days ago, I was only able to find one of mine. Now, all the rest are showing up. There must have been some sort of delay – perhaps because my blog is relatively new and it needed to be ‘vetted’ in some way. Thanks for the info.
-
@tellyworth, I was just going off of what was said by another staff member at one time here in the forums – Mark I think.
So, no delay. Thanks for the clarification.
- The topic ‘How to search for a specific tag’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 