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Blog Post Category Trauma: How To Help Bloggers With Useless Categories

Blog Post Category Trauma: How To Help Bloggers With Useless Categories

Oh, my. It seems people are still having trouble with their categories. Here’s an example I found the other day:

  • I’ve Been Thinking
  • Some Blog Stuff
  • More Blog Stuff
  • My Thoughts
  • About My Car
  • Dreams and Wishes
  • Useless Information
  • Left Over Junk

Raise your hands. Who thinks these are effective post categories? Hmmm?

Instead of me telling you why these don’t work, you tell me.

Blog Post Category Trauma Article Series

View Comments (36)
  • 1 – too vague, they don’t give any clues as to what is covered by them.
    2 – The category title should be directly related to the subject matter.

    does that about cover it (I’m just as guilty as the above of category vagueness but I’ve been thinking about sorting them out.)

  • Well, anything with thoughts or thinking in it is a bad category, as when is that NOT about your blog (your thoughts on technology, your thoughts on sport, your thoughts on politics etc.)

    Useless information is well…useless (who’s going to search for that on google) and so is Junk. Blog stuff and more blog stuff – like thoughts – is pointless because everything on the blog is “blog stuff”. Blogging or site news would be better. (if they are on the same blog, it’s criminal)

  • I think it’s a matter of people using their categories as tags. It’s okay if you’re not much for organizing your blog posts under particular taxonomies. But if you’re strict with categorizing content as such, then I think categories should be more descriptive of the general topics of the blog posts under them.

  • These categories are no good because they’re redundant. They could be consolidated into two categories: My Thoughts and My Car.

    If you wanted to get really strict, all of the categories could be wiped. This person’s blog is obviously a collections of thoughts, useless junk, and leftover stuff.

  • Well, if you are the kind of blogger who actually post “Useless Information” or “Left Over Junk” then I find it mighty nice of you to make sure I don’t accidentally stumble over it by putting it into a separate category.

    I am especially fond of the “I’ve Been Thinking” category. First of all thanks for sharing, but perhaps you should have been thinking a little longer or about something else as well.

    Apparently is this blogging thing harder than it looks :-)

  • I can see everyone’s point of view here but I also think that individuals should have free reign on their blogs. If the person’s blog I am reading is someone I like or have interest in, of course I am going to read the “I’ve Been Thinking”, “My Thoughts”, or “Dreams and Wishes.” I think that blogs should be less about legalities or bad category names and more about people sharing information with the world.

  • I think I’m using worse categories then with “rants”, “food”, “bragging rights”, “pleasure” and other obscure categories. But I guess it really depends on whether you’re running a personal blog or a business or a paid blog.

  • I sorta see the problem with the example categories, but it also makes me question whether some of my own Blogger labels (like humor, opinion, charity, and food, for instance) are too generic…

  • Some of them overlap like these two pairs:I’ve Been ThinkingMy ThoughtsandUseless InformationLeft Over Junk

  • If I can’t go to a search engine and type in the word or phrase and be certain that I’ll find the type of information that I’m looking for then it’s not a good category.

  • Only clear headings that mean something are ever going to get looked at, even if the information under the heading is usefull it is wasted if described as ‘My thoughts’. For all I know it could be about anything and totally irrelevant.

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