I lettori ci chiedono spesso cosa sia meglio per la SEO: le categorie o i tag?
Potreste non essere sicuri di cosa siano effettivamente le categorie e i tag di WordPress e di come si differenzino tra loro. Saperlo può aiutarvi a utilizzarli correttamente.
In questo articolo spiegheremo le differenze tra categorie e tag per l’organizzazione dei contenuti e come possono influire sul posizionamento SEO.
Ecco cosa tratteremo in questa esercitazione. Potete usare i link sottostanti per passare alla sezione che vi interessa:
- What's the Difference Between Categories and Tags?
- How Can You Add Categories and Tags in WordPress?
- How Many WordPress Categories Should You Have?
- Using Categories in Your Post URLs
- Can I Assign One Post to Multiple Categories?
- Is There a Limit to How Many Tags a Post Can Have?
- Categories vs Tags: What's Better for SEO?
- Can You Control How Categories and Tags Look in Search Results?
- Expert Guides on Categorizing WordPress Content
Qual è la differenza tra categorie e tag?
Le categorie e i tag sono entrambe tassonomie di WordPress. Vengono utilizzate per raggruppare i post in modi diversi.
Le categorie hanno lo scopo di raggruppare in modo generale i vostri post. Consideratele come argomenti generali o come l’indice del vostro sito WordPress. Le categorie sono gerarchiche, il che significa che è possibile creare sottocategorie.
I tag, invece, hanno lo scopo di descrivere dettagli specifici dei vostri post. Considerateli come le parole dell’indice del vostro sito. Permettono di micro-categorizzare i contenuti. I tag non sono gerarchici.
Ad esempio, questo post su WPBeginner fa parte della categoria “Guida per principianti”. Potete vedere tutti i post di questa categoria andando su Blog ” Guida per principianti nel nostro menu di navigazione.
Questo post contiene anche i seguenti tag: categorie, categorie vs tag, tassonomia personalizzata, SEO, best practice SEO, ordinare i contenuti e tag.
Questi tag non vengono visualizzati in nessun punto dell’articolo. Tuttavia, aiutano gli utenti a trovare l’articolo nelle ricerche pertinenti sul nostro blog.
Una delle maggiori differenze tra tag e categorie è che tutti i post di WordPress devono essere archiviati sotto una categoria, ma non è necessario che abbiano dei tag.
Se non si assegna una categoria al post, WordPress lo assegnerà automaticamente alla categoria predefinita. Questa si chiama “Uncategorized”, ma spesso è utile rinominare la categoria Uncategorized in qualcosa come “Other” o “Miscellaneous”.
Nota: per impostazione predefinita, in WordPress solo i post dei blog hanno categorie e tag. Tuttavia, è possibile aggiungere categorie e tag alle pagine di WordPress utilizzando un plugin.
Come si possono aggiungere categorie e tag in WordPress?
In WordPress è possibile aggiungere categorie e tag durante la creazione o la modifica di un post. Si trovano sul lato destro sotto la voce “Impostazioni del post”.
Si può anche andare su Post ” Categorie e post ” Tag per aggiungere nuove categorie e tag.
Per ulteriori informazioni sul processo di aggiunta di categorie e tag, consultate le nostre spiegazioni su Che cos’è una categoria? e Che cos’è un tag? per ottenere aiuto e guida.
Quante categorie di WordPress si dovrebbero avere?
Non esiste un numero specifico di categorie da avere. Nella maggior parte dei casi, è necessario avere un numero di categorie compreso tra 5 e 10, in modo da classificare correttamente i post e rendere il sito facile da consultare.
Le categorie sono pensate per racchiudere un ampio gruppo di post. È possibile utilizzare sottocategorie e tag per suddividere i post in gruppi più piccoli.
Se avete appena avviato un blog, non preoccupatevi di trovare un elenco perfetto di categorie. Scegliete solo 3-5 categorie generali e aggiungetene altre con il passare del tempo.
È necessario utilizzare le sottocategorie in WordPress?
Non è necessario utilizzare le sottocategorie e molti blog di grandi dimensioni (compreso WPBeginner) non lo fanno. Tuttavia, le sottocategorie sono utili se avete una grande categoria con molti post che potrebbero essere raggruppati in sezioni più piccole.
Ad esempio, si potrebbe avere una categoria “Ricette” che contiene un numero crescente di ricette senza glutine.
È possibile inserire questi post nella propria sottocategoria, in modo che i lettori possano trovarli facilmente. Si crea una nuova categoria figlia di “Ricette” chiamata “Senza glutine” e si spostano questi post in quella categoria.
Usare le categorie negli URL dei post
Alcuni siti utilizzano il nome della categoria nei permalink (URL dei post), che si possono impostare in Impostazioni ” Permalink“.
Se questo è il caso del vostro sito, il vostro post avrà inizialmente un URL simile a questo:
.../ricette/pancake senza glutine/
Dopo aver spostato il post in una categoria figlia, avrà un nuovo URL:
.../ricette/senza glutine/pancakes senza glutine/
Normalmente, WordPress cercherà di reindirizzare il vecchio URL a quello nuovo. Vale sicuramente la pena di verificare che i vostri link funzionino ancora. Se necessario, è possibile creare un reindirizzamento 301 dal vecchio URL a quello nuovo.
Un’altra opzione è quella di mantenere il post nella categoria madre e assegnarlo anche alla categoria figlia, ma questo può avere degli svantaggi.
Sebbene il sito WPBeginner abbia delle categorie nell’URL, consigliamo sempre agli utenti di utilizzare una struttura URL più breve che contenga solo “Nome del post”. Questo vi darà la massima flessibilità per riorganizzare i contenuti senza preoccuparvi di impostare i reindirizzamenti.
Tutti i nostri nuovi siti web utilizzano la moderna struttura URL “Post name”. WPBeginner ha più di 10 anni, quindi ha una struttura URL legacy. La modifica della struttura degli URL non è consigliata per la SEO, ed è per questo che l’abbiamo mantenuta.
Posso assegnare un post a più categorie?
WordPress consente di inserire un post in più categorie. Può trattarsi di più categorie madri o di una categoria madre più una o più sottocategorie.
La presenza di più categorie non giova alla SEO. Dovreste assegnare i post a più categorie solo se questo ha più senso per i vostri lettori.
È possibile che la presenza di un post in più categorie possa causare problemi di SEO a causa di contenuti duplicati.
Se utilizzate più categorie, cercate di evitare di inserire un post in due o più categorie principali (genitori). Ogni post dovrebbe rientrare in una sola categoria principale.
C’è un limite al numero di tag che un post può avere?
WordPress stesso non ha alcun limite al numero di tag che si possono avere per ogni post. Potreste potenzialmente assegnare 1.000 o più tag a un post!
Tuttavia, non lo consigliamo assolutamente.
Lo scopo dei tag è quello di aiutare a collegare tra loro i post correlati. Pensate a loro come a una sezione dell’indice di un libro. Ogni tag è come una parola chiave nell’indice.
I tag sono utili per gli utenti che effettuano ricerche sul vostro sito. Alcuni plugin che visualizzano i post correlati utilizzano i tag per capire quali argomenti dei post sono correlati.
Suggeriamo di attenersi a un massimo di 10 tag per post.
Categorie vs Tag: Cosa è meglio per la SEO?
Ci sono dei vantaggi SEO di WordPress nell’utilizzare le categorie rispetto ai tag o viceversa?
La risposta breve è No.
Le categorie e i tag hanno entrambi scopi diversi. È necessario usare le categorie, ma non è necessario usare i tag se non si vuole. Tuttavia, si consiglia di utilizzare entrambe in modo appropriato per aiutare i lettori a navigare nel sito.
In definitiva, dovreste progettare il vostro sito pensando agli utenti. Tutti i motori di ricerca vogliono mostrare agli utenti i contenuti più utili per loro.
Ciò significa che l’organizzazione dei contenuti per una migliore fruibilità aiuterà anche a ottenere un migliore posizionamento SEO.
È possibile controllare l’aspetto di categorie e tag nei risultati di ricerca?
È possibile personalizzare il modo in cui le categorie e i tag appaiono nelle pagine dei risultati dei motori di ricerca utilizzando All in One SEO (AIOSEO), il miglior plugin SEO per WordPress sul mercato.
Innanzitutto, installate e attivate il plugin All in One SEO Premium o AIOSEO gratuito. Per maggiori dettagli, consultate la nostra guida passo-passo su come installare un plugin di WordPress.
Dopo l’attivazione, è necessario navigare in All in One SEO ” Aspetto della ricerca e fare clic sulla scheda ‘Tassonomie’ per configurare l’aspetto della ricerca per categorie e tag.
Le impostazioni predefinite funzionano per la maggior parte dei siti web, ma è possibile personalizzarle in molti modi.
Ad esempio, alcuni utenti preferiscono impedire ai motori di ricerca di indicizzare i propri archivi di categorie e tag. Questo può aiutare a prevenire problemi di contenuti duplicati e incoraggia i motori di ricerca a dare priorità ai post e alle pagine effettive.
Nella sezione Categorie, è sufficiente impostare l’opzione “Mostra nella ricerca” su “No”.
Successivamente, si deve scorrere fino alla sezione Tag e fare la stessa cosa.
Assicurarsi di fare clic sul pulsante “Salva modifiche” nella parte superiore o inferiore della pagina per memorizzare le impostazioni. I motori di ricerca non indicizzeranno più le pagine dell’archivio delle categorie e dei tag.
Guide di esperti sulla categorizzazione dei contenuti di WordPress
Ora che sapete come le categorie e i tag influiscono sulla SEO, potreste voler vedere altre guide relative alla categorizzazione dei contenuti di WordPress:
- Come aggiungere categorie e tag alle pagine di WordPress
- Come aggiungere categorie e tag alla libreria multimediale di WordPress
- Come unire e modificare in blocco categorie e tag in WordPress
- Come aggiungere categorie e sottocategorie in WordPress
- Come mostrare/nascondere le categorie in WordPress (Guida definitiva)
- Come rinominare correttamente le categorie in WordPress (guida per principianti)
- Come modificare, spostare ed eliminare correttamente le categorie di WordPress
- Come etichettare automaticamente i post di WordPress e risparmiare tempo
- Come visualizzare i tag più popolari in WordPress
- Come impostare il numero massimo di tag per i post di WordPress
- Come creare tassonomie personalizzate in WordPress
Ci auguriamo che questo articolo vi abbia aiutato a capire le categorie e i tag e le migliori pratiche SEO per ordinare i vostri contenuti. Potreste anche apprezzare la nostra guida su come monitorare l’analisi delle categorie e dei tag di WordPress e le nostre scelte degli esperti sui migliori strumenti di ricerca delle parole chiave per la SEO.
Se questo articolo vi è piaciuto, iscrivetevi al nostro canale YouTube per le esercitazioni video su WordPress. Potete trovarci anche su Twitter e Facebook.
Syed Balkhi says
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ME VK says
Tag One Word or Two?
WPBeginner Support says
That choice would be up to you
Admin
Hamza Bashir says
I have a question. I have seen some websites that add extra tags. These tags have nothing to do with sorting of posts rather they do keyword stuffing in multiple tags. What is your take on this. Like I have seen such posts with 30 tags and all of them were keywords not tags. Does it help in SEO?
WPBeginner Support says
We would only recommend using tags for organization at this time.
Admin
Chandramohan says
Hi, above you said that having a single post in multiple categories can lead to duplicate content, but what about tags, assigning multiple tags to a single post, doesn’t that too lead to duplicate contents? Because, tags do have a URL right? Will it effect the SEO?
WPBeginner Support says
While tags could run into that issue, it is unlikely to cause an SEO issue with how tags are handled.
Admin
Rob Kenyon says
No such thing as ‘Document Settings’ on the right hand of my page.
No sign of Tags or Categories anywhere.
WPBeginner Support says
If you are using a page builder or on WordPress.com your interface may look different, if you are on WordPress.com we cover the difference between that and WordPress.org in our article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/self-hosted-wordpress-org-vs-free-wordpress-com-infograph/
Admin
Rupam Sarmah says
I have almost 10 category and almost 50 sub category in my lyrics website ..but I am not using any tag..is there any issue in seo
WPBeginner Support says
There should not be.
Admin
Richard Martin says
Like!! Great article post.Really thank you!
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome, glad our guide was helpful
Admin
Todd says
Is there anything wrong with having sub-sub-categories? I do think this helps my users find posts on my site, and it fits the hierarchy, but maybe they should be tags instead
WPBeginner Support says
If it works for how you are organizing content then it is fine unless you think of a better way to organize your content
Admin
Milad says
can we use this instructions for wocommerce and products as well ?
WPBeginner Support says
You can if you would like
Admin
hdys says
I have a page on my site (not category or tag) and the topic is “France tour”, and I also have a category name “France tour”, is it correct? how can I show google that my landing page is Target and the category is different?
WPBeginner Support says
That type of markup would naturally be handled by your SEO plugin if you are using one on your site.
Admin
Derek says
I maintain a web site created using WP that has no blogs/posts i.e. its web pages only. Iam concerned that search engines find the site/right page but I do not know if catagories and tags are relevant to the site. Is their any guidance on this?
WPBeginner Support says
It would depend on how much content you have but pages don’t have categories by default.
Admin
Itivere Desmond says
I love this article, it answed ALL of my questions.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our guide was helpful
Admin
Anjoo says
Would the same apply for pages?
WPBeginner Support says
Pages don’t use categories by default.
Admin
Adeel Sami says
Always feel great to land on the wisdom shared by you guys!
For me, I always keep ‘NoIndex’ the tags and ‘Index’ the categories; is it wise to do so?
I feel like there would be too much of the URLs getting indexed in the search engines coming up with the duplicate/same content.
Lastly, always the great wokr!
WPBeginner Support says
That would be personal preference, you should not need to noindex the tags
Admin
Robin says
I think you can describe more about index and no indexing of tags and categories. There is lot of confusion about this. Also category and tag sitemaps should be submitted to google search console or not?
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you for your request, for the Search Console, you would want to take a look at our article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-add-your-wordpress-site-to-google-webmaster-tools/
Admin
DannyNab says
Thank you very much for this insightful article. I’m really blessed reading this piece.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad you found our guide helpful
Admin
Rehoboth says
Pls i created a music and news blog I have about six categories no tag and for my music I use two categories which is trending categories and music categories will I have any issues with that
WPBeginner Support says
You should not have an issue with that.
Admin
Patrick says
Great article, very helpful. My only question that I have been unable to find an answer to is this: Should I noIndex Category pages?
While I think a user that landed my category page would find value, I have read that it can hurt SEO as your category page is essentially competing with your posts under that same category.
WPBeginner Support says
You would want to reread the section ‘Is it okay to assign one post to multiple categories?’ for our opinion on category pages. Normally, there is no need to noindex category pages.
Admin
Devin Egger says
GREAT content and SUPER HELPFUL article, but TONS of typos. : D
WPBeginner Support says
Thanks for your feedback on our article
Admin
Marlene Permin says
thank you for the article, i understand the difference a little better now, but i have a question.
we have a magazine, and use wordpress, to have our site.
we have over 800 articles in a lot off different topics and a lot off them have different tags on them,
with means we now have over 600 different tags on our site.
(i have taken over running the site from a former coworker) and tags where always entered when she added our new articles.
should i remove the tags from our site or should i leave them?
i dont want to hurt our Seo.
WPBeginner Support says
That would be a personal choice question but you may want to reduce the number of tags you have over time so more posts are under a tag.
Admin
Tala says
Thank you for helping me to be a better novice site builder for my small corner of the web! Let me not forget to mention that thought this is my first “comment” here, I have watched your YouTube for years and am grateful for your wealth of knowledge. Happy 2020!
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome, glad our recommendations were able to help you
Admin
Martin says
Thanks for this (and the site in general).
As someone who has worked on many websites, I’m comfortable with the categories/taxonomy, but being new to WordPress the tags are trickier to get my head around.
I actually think the key point is in your last paragraph – tags can be across multiple categories, while sub-categories should only sit under the one category.
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome, glad you like our site and our content
Admin
Jennifer says
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I finally understand the difference and how to use them now!
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome, glad our guide could help
Admin
Zahid H says
I am starting a WP site on phones. I don’t have any posts and everything is under custom post types or static texts in a page. It’s meant to be a website rather than a blog, are categories and tags still needed? Thabks
WPBeginner Support says
While not required, they can be helpful for grouping similar products
Admin
Oty Emmanuel says
Thanks very much for this writeup. I have lots of irrelevant tags littered all over my site. Will it hurt my site if i delete them?
WPBeginner Support says
You would likely want to create redirects for the deleted tags to prevent 404 pages, other than that you can feel free to remove them.
Admin
James says
Would you recommend renaming the tag base from “tag” in the permalinks section?
I’ve seen another site that has changed theirs to “all-about” and I wondered whether there were any SEO reasons for doing this.
WPBeginner Support says
You would need to redirect any post using the old link but that shouldn’t have a major SEO impact either way.
Admin
TJennings says
Great article, and I sent a link to my client because it’s so good, but could use a lot of proofreading. A lot.
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you for your feedback
Admin
John J says
This is a great article and helped me understand the categories and tags but how do they relate with image galleries if you have hundreds of images?
WPBeginner Support says
Unless the images are in multiple posts or you’re using a plugin that adds them to images, they aren’t added by default to images
Admin
Jim Gersetich says
Excellent article! It’s very helpful. I’ll be implementing on my blog site immediately.
Thank you!
WPBeginner Support says
Glad you like our recommendations
Admin
Surojit Mukherjee says
Great explanation sir. ..I had little bit of confusion about categories & tags, but after reading your article it is clear to me. ..
Thanks a lot
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our article could clear up your confusion
Admin
paula says
I have a WP video site where members can post YouTube links to their videos. I have several categories for the video posts.
I want to have a “featured” type of display on the home page where I, as the admin, select videos to feature, or post my own videos there, but I want this to be off-limits to users. Otherwise, I think everybody might be labeling their video as “featured.”
Can any of this be controlled by categories or tags? Is there a way to have a category or tag that only the admin can apply?
Any hints are appreciated.
WPBeginner Support says
Rather than the category, you could use the built-in sticky post option: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-make-sticky-posts-in-wordpress/
Admin
REGS says
Very helpful this blog. I learned many new strategies, especially good use of categories in WordPress. You did great work by sharing it.
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you
Admin
Pamela Torres says
I have a WP blog. All of my postings are falling under my Home Page. Nothing is showing up under any of the categories I have across the top. I need to know how to move those posting from Home, to the category that they need to be under.
Please help me. I worked on it until 3 a.m. and it was frustrating. Also I need to know how to set up a “leave a reply” after each of my posts.
WPBeginner Support says
For the menu items, rather than pages in your menu you would want to ensure you placed the categories themselves in your menu and your posts are set as part of those categories.
To allow comments you would want to ensure you’re allowing new comments under Settings>Discussion for new posts and your old posts should have a discussion settings area to enable comments
Admin
rachana bhapa says
found this information quite useful. I’m starting out new with my travel blog and I found so many answers and information related to my queries on your site. keep up with the great work. !!!
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our site’s been helpful
Admin
R. Murillo says
Thank you for sharing your expertise with us. It has been very helpful.
As they say, knowledge is power, how true. Simple things seem to be very complicated when they are not.
I am still struggling to get my word press blog to work.
r. murillo
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our article could help, feel free to reach out to us should you continue to struggle with your site
Admin
Avantela says
Wow, thanks for the insight. It’s easy to understand. It helps me solving my problem with my new blog.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our article could help you
Admin
Abdul says
This is Great Piece of work
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our article could be helpful
Admin
Rashmi says
Thanks for posting this. Very useful information for wordpress users.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad you found our tutorial helpful
Admin
Susan Soltrelly says
Really helpful! I was in the same boat, wondering whether I still needed to tag posts. It seems a bit archaic.
However, I do mark some posts under more than one category. I feel like if I had to narrow my categories further I’d have 50 of them! I do know that at least I find them helpful when I’m looking up old posts at our blog.
Ashwani says
Do you recommend ideal no. Would be in between 5-10 for tags, plz answer
kym says
Hi you mentioned: “Yes, you will have to go back and edit your older posts. If your URL structure is /category/postname/, then you have make sure you are using the Redirection plugin. It automatically redirects your modified posts to their new URL, so you can keep all the search engine rankings” But elsewhere in another blog, https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/seo-friendly-url-structure-for-wordpress/ it said that we will lose search engine ranking if we change permalink structure.
Why is there a contradiction?
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Kym,
Yes, you will lose search rankings if the old URL starts showing 404 error or duplicate content. That’s why you need to properly redirect URLs so that search engines can fine the content on new location and start showing it in the search results.
Admin
Emma says
On the subject of assigning multiple categories to a post…I see what you mean about this generally being a sign of a much-needed category reorganization, but I would like to point out an exception. My blog is about science—it’s open to every field, though I’ve just started out with 12—and each science field is a category. However, science fields are often multidisciplinary. For example, I might write an Astronomy post on star stuff, but that also fits into Spectroscopy. There are also Astronomy and Chemistry crossovers. I think that ultimately, it’s up to the blogger how they want to organize their categories…but these are all good points
I have a question…will it affect my search rankings at all if I use the “science” tag for all posts? If so, positively or negatively?
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Emma,
We agree. As for the ‘science’ tag. If all your posts are tagged science then basically the science tag pages will be duplicate of your main archives with essentially the same content. This could effect your SEO negatively.
Admin
J. Adams says
I would like to ask that if you assign a post to a category and a tag at the same time, won’t that result in duplicates and affect your search engine ranking?
Marta says
As far as I know, it is important that I give every category and tag not only meta tags but also a description. This can be also a longer text. I planned to do so and optimize those urls for seo too (it was suggested by a seo tool) but these descriptions are usually not visible for my readers. But I thought they would be worth reading and could be a nice introduction into that cercain category. Should I make the effort in the first place and if I do so, how can I make these descriptions visible, readable for my users?
WPBeginner Support says
Hey Marta,
Please see our guide on how to display category descriptions in WordPress.
Admin
Annavaram says
Great explanation! I find this post highly useful, clearing up the confusion I have had about the categories and tags for a long time. I recommend that the net wonderers spend some time and read it with a peace of mind if they were ever to know what “categories” and “tags” really are.
Raheem says
Hi,
For a site that has mobile phone, automobiles, banking, technology as parent categories; review, tutorials, interviews and news are being handled by tags. But the ‘news’ is always in abundant, i mean they are in hundreds.
Should i make it (news) a separate parent category and select two parent categories for any post that is news as well as belong to any of the other parent categories or i should keep handling it through tag? and should on the basis of news tag, it can be submitted to google news?
Sarah says
If we move categories into subcategories, does that break links/cause a Google penalty?
Thanks
Kay says
I also have this question. Please advise. Thanks!
Editorial Staff says
If you don’t setup proper SEO redirects, then yes it can have a negative SEO impact for those pages.
Admin
Rakhee says
I am in the process of creating a website and am confused whether to create categories in my menu or pages. I understand that pages are for static information such as About me, contact me etc. If I wanted to create a menu bar containing a nutrition, treatments folder etc would you suggest using pages or categories? Thanks!!
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Rakhee,
If you are planning on continuing to add new content into those topics, then categories are the way to go.
Admin
Debra says
Thanks for the free education. I really appreciate it. I’ll put it to use in my blogs.
Luz K Lee says
This is an excellent tutorial on categories, sub-categories, and tags. You have given me a better understanding on how best to structure my site. Thank you.
Doug Robertson says
Thanks for the great information.
I need to create an index that links a series of posts to one master post. Basicly, a master post and follow on update posts.
Is there a way to create a Tag I can use to organize and link these that can’t be seen by users in the Tag cloud and such?
Any suggestions would be helpful.