Photo.net essentially a girlie mag site?

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<p>Josh, the simple fact is that if people come here and search for things that don't even exist on the site, that's what your tag cloud will be.<br>

>>></p>

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<p>Search-driven tag clouds on a site like this are not useful and only harm the site's integrity. You are a content provider, just like a blog. Blogs do not have tags based on search, they're based on content. Lose the search, lose the cloud format. Base it on content, have a big multi-column format with hundreds of entries. That is expert advice.</p>

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<p>I'm not sure how these comments apply to the current conversation. As noted earlier, the tag cloud does not represent searches any longer, but the tags that are most used by photographers. You yourself even replied to my post stating that fact ( Your Sep 29, 2012; 09:36 a.m. post)</p>

<p>Regarding the rest, as it has always been, the tag cloud is more casual entertainment than anything. When people want to search by tags, they do so. Either through the tag search page or via the search box at the upper right hand corner of every photo.net page. I don't see a long list of thousands of tags being more useful than a search box.</p>

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<p>"Is the tag Cloud harming PN?..... if so, get rid of it."</p>

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<p>Nope, it doesn't harm anything. It's just an optional feature, one of many. It's comparable to video in a dSLR. Some folks will find it useful. Others won't. Having the feature doesn't hurt anything.</p>

<p>Steve,</p>

<p>The issue is that I don't understand what advice you are trying to give. Most of your previous post seems to center around something that no longer exists, a tag cloud based on searches. </p>

<p>Josh........... I think I'm pretty much on par with the thread here. Your link takes us to the page in question right?<br>

So, in simple terms... get rid of that and replace it with a single entry input field..... roses= all images tagged with roses.<br>

The rest of my contribution revolves around that.</p>

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<p>Josh........... I think I'm pretty much on par with the thread here. Your link takes us to the page in question right?<br /> So, in simple terms... get rid of that and replace it with a single entry input field...</p>

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<p>That is what the page is. A tag search page. The tag cloud has always just been an extra on that page. The main point of the page is the "entry input field", just as it has been since the beginning of the tag system.</p>

<p>Manually entering a tag search does exactly what it's supposed to do. I've tagged a few of my specialized photos and a manually entered tag search finds them.</p>

<p>Tags work both as well and as poorly as any user generated content. Intuitive, plain language keywords will help elevate relevant content above the noise of SEO-type keyword stuffing and poor practices in tagging content.</p>

<p>Yes Josh........... <em>"That is what the page is. A tag search page. The tag cloud has always just been an extra on that page" ...... <strong>agreed.</strong></em><br>

What I believe the OP is refering to is exactly that..... "The tag cloud has always just been an extra on that page"... so when a visitor enters our site and goes to find images by "tag", he/she is presented with this total screen of highlighted/emboldened "Girlie" references. Hence his original heading of "Photo.net essentially a girlie mag site?".<br>

All I tried to do here is to put forward a suggestion that the total body of that page viz the "tag cloud" be removed and possibly be replaced with the current PN genre listing, maybe with each genre having a subset listing of "most viewed images"..... tag driven.<br>

Simplistically speaking, one could either search for a Zebra by using the search box at the top, or select the genre reference - Wildlife and then Zebra from the subset listing.<br>

But Hey, if no-one else sees this as a possible "off-put" for visitors or potential new members, it's no "skin off my nose"..... it doesn't particularly worry me either. I was just trying to bring the thread back on track, as we can all digress, horribly.<br>

It's just a little ironic that great lengths have been taken to ensure that visitors/members are not subjected to "potentially offensive" images (to them) popping up on their screens yet allude to that, that may offend, on one of the main intro sceens into the site.<br>

Oh, before someone delves into my "favourites" folder and makes some inane remark, I like all aspects of photography but prefer to see a bad attempt at nudes by a novice than an over-HDR'd bowl of fruit (smiles).<br>

Enough said Josh. Just stirring the pot. Let me get back out there, looking for an old wrinkled face to shoot in B&W..........<br>

Best regards </p>

<p>I'm puzzled by the supposition that a tag cloud based on searches by viewers rather than on tags used by photographers is somehow not a good thing. From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, more information is better than less. The tag cloud is a useful tool in sorting out that information.</p>

<p>For example, search terms are proven, valuable metrics for bloggers and website owners. They tell us how some visitors find our blogs or websites.</p>

<p>As a photographer, why wouldn't I want access to the same information?</p>

<p>Besides the predictable preoccupation with nudes, the formerly search-based tag cloud also revealed searches related to:</p>

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<li>"abandoned" - presumably related to the niche hobby of photographing abandoned structures (ironically sometimes referred to as "ruin porn" - hopefully no one here will be offended by that)</li>

<li>"vintage"</li>

<li>"dance"</li>

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<p>If I was trying to market my stock photography, I'd want to know what people were searching for. I could then tailor my content to suit the market demand. The former search-driven tag cloud revealed some interesting niches other than the predictable nudes.</p>

<p>Hiding the information related to what viewers search for serves no useful purpose. If anything search-driven tag clouds offer a potentially useful service to offset the inherent vulnerability of folksonomies - which tend to produce as much noise as signal when tag clouds reveal keyword stuffing or simply careless tagging practices.</p>

<p>Unless PS is giving you inside access to incoming search terms that lead to your images I don't see how you're getting any metrics out of it, or how a site-wide tag cloud is of any value in that regard either. Plus you can clearly see what it led to anyway. I don't see any valuable metrics there. Plus, PN is a place for sharing, learning, and critiquing, not a marketing tool. That's my take anyway.<br>

Search driven tags could be 100% irrelevant to the content, and, as we saw already, are also heavily skewed by searching trends, far more than any attempt at self-promotion appears to have sullied the apparently new content-driven tags. I think it was a positive change. The cloud should be far bigger though.</p>