##Stack Overflow is not in need of your SEO skills

Stack Overflow has an extensive [tag system](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/30187/what-do-icons-on-the-tags-mean) which allows users to identify what technology is involved in a question, [watch or ignore certain subjects](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/19173/what-do-favorite-tags-and-ignored-tags-do), narrow [their searches to a specific area](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/5229/how-do-i-search-for-questions-with-specific-tags), and even [learn about the tag's subject via its wiki](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/69584/tag-wiki-best-practices).

This tag system *works*.  You can rely on it to *notify users who are interested in a tag about your question*.  Stack Overflow is optimized so that *tags are indexed by search engines* along with the content of the question.  Users are *guaranteed to view your tags*, and will take them into account when answering your question.

**Therefore it is completely unnecessary to force tags into your question titles.**

You absolutely do NOT have to use any one of the following forms when composing your title:

* [tag]: [question title]
* [question title] -- [tag] [tag] [tag]
* [question title] in [tag]
* [tag] [tag] [question title] [tag] [tag] [tag] 
* [tag] [tag] [tag] [tag] [tag] [tag] [tag] [tag] 

The only time you should use tags in your title is when it is *organic* to do so.  For example, 

>Javascript, jQuery:  When should I use one or the other?

is an example of forcing tags in order to compensate for a lousy title.  The title would be much clearer if rewritten thusly:

> Can I use jQuery to foo the bar on the baz, or am I stuck using plain javascript?