Tag RSS Feeds / Tags as KeyWords / Google Penalty Unused Tags

1. 58

   BaliMermaidposted 12 years ago

   Today I was reading Edweirdos Hub about how to use Tags to make relevant RSS Feeds (thankyou Edweirdo).
   
   In that hub Edweirdo states
   "I already knew that the tags we add to our hubs are used as keywords to describe the content of our hubs when Google's robots come along to perform their scans."
   
   Okay, I agree with that (but are we correct) and feel using as many relevant tags as HubPages will allow resulted in more traffic.
   
   BUT - the other day I was reviewing a list of things that Google gives plus points for, as the robots scan, and things they give negative points for, in the algorithm we all love to hate.
   
   One of the negatives was to have keywords that are unused (with unused being undefined in the report I was reading).
   
   So I am wondering, if we use tags that are relevant, of course, no problem. BUT if we don't use those tags in the text to a significant level, say 1% of total text count, are we getting penalized by Google?
   
   I would appreciate help, comments, slaps in the face on this.
   
   Thanks in advance,
   Balimermaid

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2. 88

   WryLiltposted 12 years ago

   This recent post (the entire thread is full of interesting info on this) may be of interest.
   
   It talks about how hubs will now be unpublished if they are found to have "nonsense" tags.

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   1. 58

      BaliMermaidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yes and I agree but I am not talking about nonsense or non related tags.
      
      For example a hub on Willy Mays, famous black American baseball player.
      A tag for the Hall of Fame might only be mentioned once in the hub but still listed as a tag. A tag like that is certainly relevant but won't cross the threshold thought to be necessary to be listed as a keyword.
      
      So one question is, are HubPages tags really keywords?
      
      HubPages does not use the Keyword Metatag, for several good reasons.
      As I understand it most search engines no longer rely on that meta tag to tell them what the keywords are but if you have the Metatag for keywords and put spam in there, or don't use the keywords you designate as much as that search engines algorithm wants, you get some amount of penalization.
      
      So back to the original questions.
      Are HubPageys tags really keyword indicators or really just for grouping like hubs that hubpages may present as keywords for the entire domain.  And I imagine hubpages gets revenue for clicks on those tag pages and we get impressions and clicks if someone passes through to our Hubs.

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3. 70

   sunforgedposted 12 years ago

   You shouldnt confuse Hubpages internal "tag" system with having anything to do with webmaster information on keywords or meta.
   
   It is more akin to the Wordpress Tag structure -link pages, is all

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   1. 58

      BaliMermaidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Okay thank you. So, not to be critical, the information on Edweirdos hub about using tags with rss feeds may be partially incorrect?
      
      "I already knew that the tags we add to our hubs are used as keywords to describe the content of our hubs when Google's robots come along to perform their scans.".
      
      and the tag is just to link all hubs of relevant type together internally.
      That means no negative effect with google if a relevant but lightly used
      tag is placed in the tag que.

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4. 70

   sunforgedposted 12 years ago

   Ed is not wrong. The syntax is just confusing between each persons meaning of keyword, tag, metatag etc. I dont know what article you were originally referring to, or if that author used the syntax in a confused/confusing way or if it was to date etc etc.
   
   The tags are words on the page and inbound/outbound anchored links, sure, why wouldn't a little bot add that to its possible relevant keywords for the page?
   
   I dont see how any negatives could be caused by the tags, who but the author knows the relevance of each term?
   
   Moderators and everyday readers cant possible know every term, word, slang usage, misspelling, jargon etc. for every topic.

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   1. 58

      BaliMermaidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I totally agree. Thanks for your advice and input.

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5. 89

   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   Google says it that it ignores tags for ranking purposes unless they are deceptive (not used in the body of the article), then you get a demerit. If you are an honest Joe this is not a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing applied to RSS.
   
   The easy way to avoid problems is to avoid being clever (or stupid) and stick to what is patently reasonable.

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   1. 58

      BaliMermaidposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That is what I was referring to; deceptive (not used in the body of the article) but does one usage of a genuinely relevant tag suffice - I hope so.
      
      I agree that it is better to stick to what is patently reasonable.
      Thanks for your input.

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   2. 70

      sunforgedposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      citation?
      
      Whats a tag?

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