Tagging – an overview

Last Updated: 2009

---

Tagging Definition

A tag is a textual label that can be assigned to an object (here, a webpage) to express its contents.

Tagging is the process of labeling.

Usually used to organize information, tags are assigned by us, the web users, to different pieces/sources of information that we find on the Internet and would like to keep track of or share.

Tagging is very closely related to categorizing. While you would categorize information using labels that cover broad information, tagging can get very descriptive and is representative of your own judgment and imagination.

Example:

Lets take the example of Why hire SEO Professionals webpage. The article talks about the need for hiring SEO professionals and what questions you must ask before choosing the SEO firm/professional for your website.

If you were to categorize this page, it could be done so under 'SEO', 'Internet Marketing', 'Search Engine Marketing', 'SEO professionals', 'SEO firms' etc.

An individual may tag this page using all the above examples and even labels like 'Website help', 'SEO hiring info', 'why SEO pro help', 'choosing SEO pro', 'hiring professionals' etc.

Thought behind tagging

Tagging is a source of information coming from the viewers. It allows filing of information under various labels which viewer identifies the information with. Such information is clubbed with other information which was filed by the same tag/label by some other viewers.

Unlike categorization, where information is put in black and white, tagging is more opinionated.

Each piece of information can be tagged by viewers based on their understanding of that topic and what they associate with it.

The original intention of a keyword tag was to list such label and words that could be associated with the topic of the webpage. This metadata was not visible to the viewer and was the opinion of the information provider.

Tags are such sets of keywords or key phrases that are the opinion of the viewer about that information and are visible to everyone. Information is filed in a way that a viewer would like it filed in sources like Del.icio.us (files bookmarks), Technorati (blog posts) and Flickr (photos).

Using Tagging

Tagging is a way through which people label information they found in the web using text that they most associate it with and share it.

When you tag a source of information, it gets stored in social networks like Del.icio.us (files bookmarks), Technorati (blog posts) and flickr (photos). It is then visible to everyone and is shared through tags.

Tags are a great way of not only sharing but also studying the information and its impact.

While web search engines today use anchor texts, search engines like Technorati use tags to display results. These social search engines are built on a platform that uses viewer inference to file a topic. The results are a collection of community opinionated sources categorized under a similar tag.

While this may not directly be semantics, it is nonetheless associative labeling, which is becoming more and more popular among the web users.