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Should we optimize the tags both for "connecting experts with questions" and for search engines to better index the questions? The above Help page mentions:

Because the tags appear below the question and tags are indexed by search engines along with the content of your question, you can trust that other people will be able to find your question based on tags they follow or search for.

If the goal of tagging does include search engine optimization, what does this mean for ambiguous tags, such as title? See this question, although the tag issue is not limited to Stack Overflow, and extends across other Stack Exchange sites.

SEE ALSO:
Tagging best practices

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    I suspect it simply validates the already common (at least on SO, can't vouch for others) practice of culling ambiguous and otherwise harmful tags.
    – zcoop98
    Feb 10, 2021 at 18:29
  • 1
    Only optimize tags for the first, the second is a non-issue since search engines don't only look at the tags.
    – Braiam
    Feb 25, 2021 at 14:02

1 Answer 1

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+100

By using tags, you can guarantee that people who follow the tags will find your question.


How to tag?

Tags help the right people find and answer your question.

  • Identify your tags by completing the sentence, "My question is about…"
  • Include tags that are crucial to your question only
  • Use existing popular tags

Source: Go to https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/ask and click on the ? mark

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I think we should consider the expert case, i.e. what tags do the experts follow? Include those tags in your question, and you can be sure that the experts won't miss it.

As long as the right keywords are found in the post, indexing by search engines should not be an issue.

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