Do tag clouds help or hinder SEO?

[ITQUEBECA]

Very good answer, thank you

[agapitoflores001]

Yes it helps, at least for me. Good answers from him. Very clear.

[mr24bd]

I like it beacuse it nice video and give help to work.

[TGcommercial]

I'd like to have one because it looks nice but I don't want to add so many links to every page. Maybe a flash tag cloud :) It could look nicer and maybe it wouldn't be indexed.

[abarton02]

why don't you say "tags clouds...just don't use them!". Thats all we need!

[PropellerBusted]

Tag Clouds = Style over Substance.

Of course there's a penalty. I personally never liked them. Especially the JavaScript or flash ones. Stupid trend that appears to be over anyway.

[ThaHotCoolDude]

Hey great video, and nice to meet you also

[kristobaldude]

This video was very helpful and helped me opt against tag clouding, and introduced me to the term "kewyord stuffing" ... However, it does seem like You guys at Google like to change ranking methods once people figure out the SEO. For example, why can't I get a straigt answer on the max amount of tags a youtube vid can have?

[sproductiond]

I just love that answering :)

[sparkloweb]

Sounds like this is one place where fancy but uncrawlable Flash is a good idea, for two reasons. You avoid wasting pagerank on irrelevant terms, and normal tag clouds are so ugly that a Flash version might be more interesting to users.

[jamaludiens]

twing . . .

[searchmasters]

The biggest problem with tag clouds

- the tag phrases are often single words - ie Google, or SEO, and as such are unlikely to be able to be ranked on Google for those phrases. Better to be longer phrases

- the tag pages are seldom SEO'ed properly. You need to create an opening paragraph on the pages specifically for that "tag" phrase. I use autogenerated opening paragraph ie "Posts tagged 'Tag Phrase' on Domain.com, the place for all things SEO".

- sad that too many is keyword stuffing

[SEODoctorUK]

Matt, by saying don't use tag clouds as they evaporate your pagerank, you are basically advising pagerank sculpt???

[figurethis2]

cheers for the video Matt

[LusoRobotica]

Thanks for all your help. I think that all webmasters should see your videos regulary.

Well, one more question. What micro data is google actually using and how can we help google showing important microdata about our website?

I see that lately google have improved the show of microdata, like the one show in IMDB website.

[chempranav]

Very important question it was, & glad you clarified.

[bigal21110]

I say it is safe to stay away from them. Just put latest posts and archive.

[stevo632]

I tend to find they look like spam to the normal user, and ugly, so from a design point of view, I tend to steer clear.

[johnbozi]

thanks I was just wondering to use them or not - and this totally made me decide they are stupid. You are best to link your site as Mat said in ways you control where you want the flow to go to instead of just mirroring what is already there on the page.

[vxcriss]

I never liked tag clouds, I think they are useless and an unneeded distraction. But if you love them and don't want to have any issues with them you can always set nofollow on the links.

[imrankhanseo]

Good One Matt that's right if you are placing number of Keyword stuffing with Tag cloud's it might be harmful for your website.

Regards

Imran Khan

[MrGr00vy]

Your blog?

What is the URL to your blog?

[imrankhanseo]

@MrGr00vy Here is the Blog of Mattcutt you can check it out mattcutts com / blog

put . after mattcutts then / then remove space

[MrGr00vy]

@imrankhanseo Thanks, verry helpfull....

[0xC0FF33]

@MrGr00vy learn using google!! It's the first link, when you enter his name...

[MrGr00vy]

@0xC0FF33 Thanks, verry helpfull....

[bvllets]

I tend to use cumulonimbus tag clouds. I tried some cirrus ones with not alot of luck.