Why Tags Are Crucial for SEO in Media

Google has confirmed that it uses a Topical Authority (TA) assessment system for websites by analyzing the content they publish. Google understands the subject matter of content – this is how it indexes pages and classifies them for relevant search terms – and examines the quality and expertise of each piece of content published on the site.

For news publishers, topical authority appears to be one of the two main metrics that Google uses to evaluate publisher visibility when a core algorithm update is introduced. The second is E-E-A-T factors, many of which are linked to topical authority.

Topics should only be created when they align with the overall editorial strategy and when there is certainty that there will be enough articles tagged with the tag to maintain topic relevance. Building a tag management process is a topic for another story – today let’s focus on the tag and tag page.

What is the Perfect Tag in a Media Service Strategy

The perfect tag in a media service is an entity that meets the following criteria:

Is a Concrete, Identifiable Unit

• Refers to an actual entity (person, place, organization, event, concept)
• Has its counterpart in the Knowledge Graph (Wikidata, Google Knowledge Graph) or if it doesn’t exist yet, one will be created soon – for example, the name of a newly announced game or a planned movie title
• Has unique properties and relationships with other entities

Maintains Conciseness and Precision

• Consists of 1-5 words (exceptions are possible)
• Uses the official or commonly accepted name of the entity
• We always use only one option – both “Heroes 3” and “Heroes of Might and Magic 3” are correct and understandable, but only one should exist in the service

Examples of Correct Tags

• “Donald Trump” (person)
• “Warsaw” (place)
• “Apple Inc” (organization)
• “UEFA Euro” (event)
• “artificial intelligence” (concept)

The Problem of Entity Distinction

There are situations where entity distinction is difficult:

• “Apple Inc” (technology organization)
• “apple” (fruit) – in English may cause ambiguity

Therefore, in the tagging system, one should link to a specific ID in the Knowledge Graph. Each entity has a unique identifier (e.g., Wikidata ID: Q312 for Apple Inc, Q89 for apple).

Implementation of Knowledge Graph Connection

Example JSON-LD Schema implementation for a tag with Knowledge Graph connection:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Thing",
  "name": "Apple Inc",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q312",
    "https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/m/0k8z",
    "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc."
  ],
  "description": "American multinational technology company"
}Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

Best Practices for Tag Page

The tag page should be built according to best practices:

URL Structure: /tag/{tag-name} or /topic/{topic-name}

Page Elements:

• H1 Title: “{Tag Name} – latest information”
• Meta description: “Latest articles about {tag name}. Follow event developments.”
• Breadcrumbs: Home > Topics > {Tag Name}
• List of articles in chronological order
• Pagination for larger number of materials

Structured Data: Implementation of Schema.org WebPage type with appropriate sameAs fields pointing to Knowledge Graph

Technical Optimization:

• Loading speed below 500ms
• No JavaScript dependencies for basic content
• In an ideal world, the tag page should not have ads

The Role of SEO vs Editorial in Tagging Strategy

It’s crucial to understand that decisions about what to write about are made by the editorial team, not SEO. SEO can only suggest which tags to use and convince the editorial team to adopt a consistent tagging strategy.

Collaboration between teams should include:

• Training editorial staff on proper tagging principles
• Regular audits of existing tags and tag cleanup
• Building a list of preferred entities aligned with editorial strategy

How Not to Do Tagging – Problems I’ve Encountered

In my career, I’ve encountered services that had 500 thousand tags, of which 450 thousand were completely senseless and unnecessary. This is the result of old strategies and “tagging madness” that editorial teams were trained in many years ago.

Typical mistakes include:

• Creating tags for every keyword
• Tags being long phrases instead of entities (often these tags were better titles for articles than the actual title)
• Duplicating tags with similar meanings (classic example: Jan Paweł 2 and Jan Paweł II)
• Lack of consistency in naming

Remember: it’s better to have 1,000 well-managed tags than 50,000 chaotic ones. Quality always prevails over quantity, especially in the context of building topical authority in Google’s eyes.