Posted April 26th, 2008, in: Computer Problems and Fixes

Last night, I noticed that at the bottom of my posts, the links that normally link to the categories of my blog that i posted the post to, had changed into links to tag-searches in the wordpress community blog search pages. So rather than providing additional navigation throughout my site, the links are taking the reader away from my blog.

I wouldn’t mind this if it was parallel, that is if it said “posted in Category, Category2, Category3.” and then went on “Tagged with Category, Category2, Category3″

But no.

To me, the category links that go with each post are one of the most intuitive navigation features that blogs commonly have. They act like “See more by this author in this category” links. In fact, I think that category links in the sidebar of a blog are less user-friendly than the ones that accompany each post because of the scroll-free way in which you interact with them. You use category navigation largely to evaluate a site or to scan to find a specific kind of content. Who wants to be scrolling back UP and scanning side-columns to find the category navigation? Not me. Scan, click, scan, clack. That’s what we do. And we scan downward, not back up.

Recently, WordPress seems to have decided that they want users to start using the Tag feature. They’ve even moved the Category form way down below the fold of the WYSIWYG, below the Tag form.

I have never used Tags because I think they are pointless for the author to add. Tags are for folksonomies like delicious, not for bloggers to use to increase their own meta-clutter. We have meta keywords in html for that. And a good blogger will use categories in reasonable ways which will result in user-friendly navigation as well as SEO.

I thought maybe if I used the “Convert Categories to Tags” feature, once I had some tags in the database, maybe the “filed in” links would default back to the way they are supposed to… Maybe this was a bug I’m experiencing because I have never added a tag to my blog.

Alas, all my categories are now deleted. I have around 200 posts on this blog.

I’m realizing now that we’re being manipulated into driving traffic to WordPress.com Tag-Searches. Sickening. I don’t mind linking back to the community blog-pile, but shit, don’t take away my readers’ ease of use to do it! Jeez.

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