I've been reading a thread at vb.org about tag clouds.

Could the tag cloud in vBulletin 3.7.0 hinder your SEO? Would SEs consider it keyword spamming?

Obviously you could add 'rel=nofollow' to them and that would solve that but was wondering what you're thought were.

Cheers
Glen

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I've always thought the clouds are ugly and just don't look right anywhere to me. I'm using tags but don't have a tag cloud right now because I dont like the way it looks. However, big shots at google have been saying for a year or so that they're trying to work in tags to their searching more so that is why I'm at least using them so I can turn it on if I need it.

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Same here, also I think they will just add to more duplicate content.

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Its not really duplicating anything though, its more repeating the tags your forum uses most. There is a fine line between duplicating and repeating the content. If it gave you a a different URL with mostly the same content then i'd be concerned with duplication, but since the URL is different for each tag, and each tag page displays different content I don't really see how its going to hurt any.

I've got a tag cloud on just about all my forums some where, the tags.php page is restricted by the robots.txt, and when doing a site:http://mysitenamehere.com search in google, it lists alot of the tag words so it gives extra pages indexed in google that other wise wouldn't be there.

Try it out, see if it hurts or helps your SEO and then make changes as neccassary

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I agree that it probably isn't going to affect duplicate content problems with SE's.

The only thing I don't like about them is the looks, but I might try it out in the coming month or so.

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F-Body Online - Camaro and Firebird Performance
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I am not too sure about tags effect on seo but, most of my first page site searches bring me tag links, such as:
www.mysite.com/tags/vbulletin
www.mysite.com/tags/vbsetup etc..

My first impression was "great" a nice way to interlink all the pages.
but seeing the results in search engines, I don't spend much time tagging.

The only real benefit IMO is if your forum or blog is listed in technorati. Then you might get some burst of traffic if using a popular tag.

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At fist, I deny access using robots.
This weekend i enabled in robots and add "noindex, follow" in the tags and tags search page
I don't know if this is good or bad ... lets wait.

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I have the tags commented out in the robots.txt file too ;)

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I think tag clouds are good for SEO, but I wouldn't put the cloud on every page. Linking together related pages is key to getting indented search listings in Google.

I wouldn't spend much time tagging old content though, maybe just concentrate on keywords you want to rank for.

I've got some ideas up my sleeve on how to make tag pages better for SEO, but I'll let you know more once I build it into a plugin. Stay tuned.

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