Tags

Instead of standard categories that you may be used to, Publii uses Tags, which are keywords that apply to a post. A post can have multiple tags attached to it, so even if your post covers many subjects readers will be able to find it.

To create a new tag, click on the Tags option in the left-sidebar menu. If you haven't got any tags, then you'll see a plain page with a big Add New Tag button, so click on that and the Add New Tag sidebar will appear on the right of the screen.

The Add New Tag sidebar menu will open, where you can enter the details for the new tag and complete creation.

Tag Options

The options available when adding or editing a tag are separated into groups with several options in each, as follows:

Basic Information

This section covers the basic elements for the Tag. The available options in this section are: 

• Name - Enter the name for your tag here.
• Description - Put a description for your tag here, such as the type of content that it is associated with. The text entered here will be shown on the individual tag page on your site, which lists all the posts in a particular tag.
• Hide Tag - This option allows you to hide a tag from all post listings and individual post pages; this means that the specific tag page for the hidden tag will not be rendered to reduce the weight of your site.

Featured Image

The featured image of a tag is the image that will be added at the top of the Tag's page, or anytime a tag is displayed in a showcase should your theme have such a feature. The available options are:

• Featured Image - The featured image usually appears at the top of the tag page and is also used as the tag-preview picture. To add a featured image to your tag you can either drag and drop an image onto the Featured Image box, or click on the Choose File button to open a file explorer window to select a photo from your computer.
• Alternative Text - This option is only available if you have set a featured image. Here, you can add text that will be displayed if the image cannot load, or read by a screen-reader used by visually-impaired users to describe the photo.
• Caption - Another featured-image-only option, text added here will be added as a caption under the photo.
• Credits - Name or other text added here will appear as a credit, letting people know who took the picture or owns the copyright if it is not your own.

SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, refers to options that can be used to control how your Tag's page will look when appearing in search engine results, or improve its ranking in searches. The available options are:

• Slug - The name you enter here should be link-friendly; that is, it shouldn't contain any spaces or special characters as it will be used for links on your website e.g. if you have a category called "Latest News", then the slug might be "latest_news". The slug will be generated automatically if this field is left empty.
• Page Title - Sets the meta title (which is used for SEO purposes and will be displayed in search engine results); indexing must be enabled in the Publii settings before this option can be used.
• Meta Description - Set the meta description, which functions similarly to the meta title. Again, indexing must be enabled to use this option.
• Meta Robots Index - This option sets the behaviour that search engine robots (that is, the programs that search engines use to collect information on sites and sort them into groups for use in searches). Index/Noindex sets whether the web page is indexed by search engines so that it can appear in search listings; Follow/Nofollow sets whether the links on the page should be followed by the robots.
• Canonical URL - Sets what URL is the base, or most important, URL for the page. If left blank, the default Tag Page URL will be set as the canonical URL. 

Other Options

This section deals mainly with setting which elements of the tag page should be displayed; through the options in this section you can set whether, for example, the featured image is displayed on the tag page or not. Most of the options here are self-explanatory, but there is one option that should be noted:

• Custom Template - Sets the template layout to be used by the tag page; different themes may include only one default template, or multiple alternatives.

Finding a Tag

As you add new tags they will be listed on the opening Tags screen that you see when clicking on the Tags option in the left-sidebar. By default, the tags are listed from newest to oldest, but you can easily switch the order by clicking on the column header e.g. by clicking on the ID header, you can sort your tags by order of creation (as each new tag is created it is assigned an ID, starting from '1' for the first tag). 

If you have a large number of tags and need to find a specific one, you may use the Search option by clicking on the magnifying glass icon that is next to the Tags title at the top of the page. Searches are dynamic and will filter the list as you type, so it'll be easy to find what you're looking for.  

Deleting a Tag

To delete a tag, on the list of tags that you first see when opening the tag page, click on the checkbox to the left of the tag you want to delete; once a check is added the delete option will appear as a Delete button at the top of the section:

Hiding a Tag

To hide a tag so that it will not be visible on your site (useful if you wish to sort posts into categories for your own tracking), you can follow the same steps as when deleting a tag; in the tag section that displays the list of your tags, click on the checkbox to the left of the tag(s) you wish to hide; an option to Hide the tags will appear to the right of the delete button at the top of the section; click this and the selected tags will be hidden.

Editing a Tag

Editing a tag is basically the same as adding a tag, except that the options are already filled out! To open the Edit Tag sidebar, simply click on the name of the tag that you wish to modify.