Are Tags in Blogs good?

[Studio33]

Hi

Is adding tags into Blogs a good idea?  Does it help with SEO at all?

For example blog/?tag=/Invoicing-Software Will that help us get ranked for Invoicing Software?

Regards

Andrew

[AlanMosley]

They cause duplicate content problems, I don't think people use them much, and IMO they look tacky.

They have no SEO Value I can think of.

[MikeRoberts]

The only potential value in blog tags is for the sake of usability. The SEO values are negligible at best and most wind up noindexing Tag archives anyway in order to save themselves from duplicate content issues. The value of relevant tags on a blog is that they help tie together other relevant articles on a subject to make them more easily accessible and tie all the posts together with something akin to an overarching theme. Use them for the sake of giving human users another way to find related content that may keep them on site longer.

[Studio33]

Thanks Both that is what I thought

[GeorgeAndrews]

I agree with both Alan and Mike, there is no real SEO value you will gain from using tags on your blog. As Mike says, usability is probably the only reason to use tags. If you're using WordPress, Dan Shure posted a pretty good article on setting up WordPress for SEO last May.