Tags are extremely useful, but if you’re new to tumblr, you might not know what to do with them (hence this nifty little guide). Tags have three basic uses: Organization, Information, and Commentary.
Tags are used for organization by consistently tagging things into categories you’ll remember so you can search for them later from your blog. This is the most basic use for a tag. This is also how tracked tags work, on a much larger scale. Have something you want organized on your blog but also want it out of the major tracked tags? Get creative. Many bloggers have tags only they and their followers would recognize. using tags for organization is very useful if you ever want to find a specific post again. Ever.
Organization tags also include tagging people you’re talking about or to in a post. If they’ve tracked their tag (and they probably have) they’ll know when someone tags them in a post and will be able to find that post to comment or keep talking. Remember, username tags need to be exact or the user won’t see it in their tracked tag.
Using a tag for information is possibly the most important use for tags. Not only is it useful, it can help keep people safe while browsing tumblr. Information has two main categories: basic information and warnings.
Basic information includes what fandom the post is about and the characters in it (as well as the ships) or simply the subject of the post.This lets people know the subject matter and is a great way for people to find new series they might want to read/watch/play/listen to. Tagging fandoms, characters, and ships also lets your followers blacklist certain things if they like you, but not one of your fandoms.
Warning tags are specifically for other users to blacklist. Blacklisting is a feature of a program called Tumblr Savior (TS), which helps keep people with phobias or triggers safe while browsing. It’s also used to avoid spoilers or posts about things a user just really doesn’t like. The most common warning tags are for violence, death, or non-consensual sexual activity, though there are obviously many more. I, for example, have spiders tagged because spiders scare the crap out of me.
Warning tags are very important, please use them.
Commentary tags are the fun tags. They’re for making comments you don’t want in the body of the post for one reason or another and often include, grumbling, sarcasm, and reactions to fandom posts. Because of the restrictions on grammar, commentary tags are usually un-capitalized and lacking punctuation. Commentary tags break where a comma might normally be, for emphasis, or if that tag is getting too long.I hope this guide has helped! Remember, it’s just a basic guide to get you started.
in addition:
i believe xkit also has a blacklisting feature? i’ve never tried it because i still use tumblrsaviour.
it’s also worth noting that tracked tags do not include reblogged posts, only individual posts, so if you tag a reblog for a friend with their url and they have their url tracked, they still won’t see it—but it does make it easier to search their blog for posts they’ve made/reblogged for you later. ^^
Also, important note: tags with hyphens are for commentary only. Because of the way Tumblr uses hyphens to indicate spaces in tag URLs, tags with hyphens in them cannot be searched for.
(This means that if your URL contains a hyphen, you are screwed tracking-wise unless people know to tag your name using a space instead of a hyphen, which never happens. Tumblr should fix this, but we all know they won’t and it might well be too entrenched in the way things work now anyway.)
Tags:
#useful things #A User’s Guide to Tumblr #reply via reblog
Brinens and Things 
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