Do you use tag clouds?
I've criticized tag clouds in the past. I can think of a ton of reasons for why I hate them. Actually, I only need a few reasons, but each one is worth a ton.
Still, today I was reading about text clouds and even though I saw the same problems that I've always known with tag clouds, I figured I would put my money where my mouth is (mmm, tasty money) and let my readers do the judging…
Now I know my readership is made up of significantly smarter and better-looking ladies and gents than the general Internet populace, but I'm going to assume that the opinions my readers offer will be reflective of most web users. So I ask you, Mr./Ms. good-looking; do you actually use tag clouds that you find on websites and blogs, or do you just steer clear of them?
I'm hoping for lots of opinions and feedback on this one, so lurkers, de-lurk!
1 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Trackback: erinch.com on March 21, 2007
Not at all. Don't think I've ever used one once.
I just flat out don't like them. I suppose it's because it looks so disorganized. I have seen a few on some archive pages of some blogs and they weren't SO bad. But I still despise them.
Generally depends on how they are implemented. Their value is little - and I don't forsee ever using one
I like them at flickr.com.
They give some visual sense of what's photographed more frequently, although they could use some graph to show statistics… ahh… What do I know?
I don't use them on my own site, but I seriously love them as a visual representation of the what a blogger writes about. But, when I'm searching for a term, an alphabetical list is much simpler and easier to use.
I think that people who have the gut reaction of 'Oh, a tag cloud, blargh' haven't seen them implemented in a thoughtful, beautiful way.
They're still sitting in the sidebar of all the blogs I made a New Years Rez to stop wasting my time with, but no, I've never clicked on any before in my whole Web2.0 life and don't see ever having the need to do either.
Nope. Can't stand them.
I was an advocate of them, but I saw this the other day:
http://www.petefreitag.com/tags/
It has put me off them forever.
For any given site–less than three seconds, and only once. Keep it out of the way. I have it on my own site (a little out of the way, in the archives) because it gets decent clickthroughs. The readers have spoken…
Hey Christian,
I know you've never really liked them (long-time reader, few time commenter) and I don't either. I haven't incorporated them and don't click on them when they're shown on other sites.
There are far better ways of telling readers what your site is about.
I only use tag clouds when I have many (20+) tags. Otherwise a list with 20 lines doesn't seem very useful and easy to scan.
After playing around with tag clouds on my old site, I'm glad I stopped using them. For personal sites at least, it seems too much like a cop-out: A few well chosen categories go a long way.
I think the idea of tags are great if you use them to show a list of related articles, for example. But the idea of a tag cloud is just stupid, a good search is better.
I'm thinking of using tags soly for relating content on my current project.
I read some place that they can be useful as SEO tools
BUT apart from that I agree, hate them with a passion. On stuff like De.lio.us etc they can be useful but apart from that the only clouds I like are rain clouds….
I think that some people here don't get the point of a tag cloud. It is a visual representation that shows the weight of categories by content. It is not a replacement for search, it is a tool for exploration.
Ah, here's where I like the tag cloud:
http://centripetalnotion.com
I understand what they can be used for but I also understand that a simple list with a number icon next to the text is probably an easer thing to use….
I tend to agree with Lila, it some cases they can be nice. However, I do not currently use them on any of my sites.
As part of my current internship before graduation I've been researching tag clouds a lot and more importantly, how to make them better. I completely agree that the way they are currently implemented is crap. Tag clouds are as they are now a poor navigation aimed at browsing mindlessly through a site's content.
Tag clouds lack context and fail to display the relationships that make them so valuable. Furthermore, when you deal with tag clouds based on folksonomies, there's an incredible amount of information available on the aging of tags.
Some people are really doing some interesting stuff in this space:
Tag clouds can be great for exploration, but its success highly depends on one of the basic rules of information design: offering the right information at the right time in the right way.
In my project I hope to cluster tags based on their co-occurrence and the interests of the user, to deliver a hybrid tagcloud — bit of hierarchy, bit of context and a bit of relationships.
totally agree with you. i've never clicked with on one single cloud. the only cloud i love is the delicious one
I don't use tags (although this is changing for my tutorial site), let alone tag clouds.
For certain sites the tag cloud is an impressive visual element. For example I've seen a few websites that have used the tag cloud as the "header image" of the page. Quite impressive.
However, functionality wise the only thing a tag cloud is going to do is mock a well made site search. Which.. as you suggest.. is quite useless.
I'll give tag clouds the a-ok nod… they are not that bad but I don't want to see every site in existence with a tag cloud either.
I don't really like them because I like the 'neat and tidy' look
BTW - thanks for the comments on my blog… I'm honored!!
Not a fan of them per se. Though I wont say that I've never explored them as a user, there's bound to have been a time when I subconciously clicked on a tag I was looking for; which just so happened to be in a tag cloud.
I think they're probably very handy on uber popular websites with a zillion tags. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother implementing one.
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I'm going to assume, then, that I can continue disliking tag clouds, though I'll keep my mind open since a few of you do insist that they can be helpful.
I'll be making a new site in the next couple week that will use tags, and I'll definitely figure out a more effective way of presenting those tags than just a messy cloud.
Why are they called tag clouds? That confused me as I've never heard of them before till now. They have really nothing to do with clouds… or at least, I can't make the connection…
I don't really have a problem with them. Actually, scratch that. If they're on a separate page and there's another means of accessing the different categories, they're fine. But if that's the only way, or they're on the main page… no. I use them sometimes on a site, but I don't always want to use them. So yeah.
I am guessing they are called tag clouds because they repersent clouds, the more rain (posts under that category) the larger and fluffy (?) they become…
They are also called clouds because all the tags are different sizes, like puffs in clouds.
The tag cloud is extremely unusable, even savvy web users wouldn't use it, SEO professional keep say it good for your site, I just see it look silly.