Cafepress has removed the feature that offers suggestions for tags to shopkeepers while they are tagging their own images.  The reason for this is because they claim it lead to improper tags being added.

Removal of “suggested tags”Ever hear of Tag Spamming?

Yeah we have too, and it’s a problem many Web 2.0 companies are talking about these days. Basically it’s the result of web users adding improper “tags” to their content.

We see it all over in the CafePress marketplace. A great example would be if a search result for “Hillary Clinton” turned up T-Shirts featuring Rudy Giuliani or Barack Obama – obviously not the products the shopper was searching for. We’re sure you’ve run across this at some point while searching at CafePress and other sites.

Part of the problem may be the result of a tool that identifies “suggested tags” to Shopkeepers based on current tag usage.

When Tags were first introduced to the community, it was a great tool that helped Shopkeepers learn about tagging, and how they might want to think about tagging their own items. Unfortunately “bad” tags are now being suggested.

Many Shopkeepers have expressed that they’d like to see this feature disappear, and as of today it has!

I don’t really buy the inappropriate tags excuse although I am sure many customers complained.  Many times members of Cafepress suggested even using “inappropriate” tags in order to draw attention to products.

Of course I’m happy to see this feature go. First because it gave people the ability to see what other tags people were targeting based on the tags they had selected. This was bad in my opinion because it gave competitive stores information that no person running an online business would want so readily available and I am sure ticked off more than a few people. Second however was because the suggested tag box worked only about 80% of the time. The other 20% it wouldn’t load at all and cause site slowness issues.

So now, if you want to tag your products you are going to have to think up your own tags.

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J.J. Jackson is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. and Cafepress “Top Shopkeeper”. He has been selling t-shirts on-line since 2004 and is the owner of the T-Shirt Entrepreneur, a site dedicated to helping people get involved in the T-shirt Economy. He is also the owner of Funny When Wet T-shirts, American Infidel Tshirts, Uber Gamer T-shirts as well as many other online t-shirt and gift stores.