Using Tags vs Topic Pages in Digital Garden Running on Ghost
#Ghost Blog, #Digital Garden
As an alternative to native Ghost Blog tags in my Digital Garden I currently use topic pages.
Topic Page is note dedicated to a single topic which acts like a node for relevant content and links to other notes. The problem is how to manage these links and keep them up to date.
I used to automate it the following way: when Topic Page was published all the outcoming [[Double Bracket]] links were replaced with urls. Backlinks were inserted right into the topic page body.
Here is breakdown of pros and cons of doing that.
Ghost Tag Pros
- Tagged posts show up on the Tag page automatically
- Tag is clear for everyone
- The tag page looks kinda nice with its posts list
- Allows to seamlessly integrate the digital garden into the blog
Ghost Tag Cons
- My current theme only shows a primary tag on the post page which limits navigation capabilities. For that reason, it won't work well with densely liked notes.
- The "Related posts" section is also limited
- Tags are searchable. Too many tags would overflow search results.
Topic Page Pros
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Matches Zettelkasten note structure
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Allows to add additional context for the topic or seamlessly turn the topic page into an outline.
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Using tags only for the "blog" allows me to keep the digital garden separately from the blog itself.
Topic Page Cons
- The topic page needs to be re-published every time so that backlinks would pull in
- The plain text list of backlinks doesn't look as good as the native "related posts" section.
I wasn't 100% happy with how my topic pages and developed a better alternative that takes the best from both "Topic Page" and "Ghost Tag Page" and almost doesn't have any downsides: Using Private Tags for Digital Garden Backlinks in a Ghost Blog
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