Many of you have already seen the new and improved Story Tags feature we have launched (currently in BETA) on Lit. We have always used a keywords system to help readers find stories via search, but this update takes that feature one step further. Literotica is inching closer to having 100,000+ submissions published and the pace of submissions continues to increase with each passing year. That is great news, of course, but it also brings some challenges. When a reader visits the site, how does she or he find what they are looking for?

We have always used story categories, and we will continue to add more of those when we feel that it is justified and/or when we get enough requests (and stories that fit into the requested category). However, the number of categories will always be limited, and many stories fit into multiple categories. What to do?

Search is a great way to find specific stories, but it doesn’t allow browsing and it requires the reader to figure out each search term. There must be something better?

We hope that “something better” will be the Story Tags feature. It allows authors to add tags to their stories, and then readers can click on those tags to find other stories that share those tags. You could look at it as a way to add unlimited, user-generated categories, to the site. Some other story sites use story codes, ASSTR for example, where the author tells you MMM/f, Fdom, preg whatever. But those tags are generally a large set of pre-set acronyms/terms that both authors and readers need to know in advance. That system is interesting and has worked well over the years in usenet, but like categories, it is somewhat limited. We are hoping that the Literotica Story Tags feature will go beyond the old systems because the authors themselves are the ones creating the tags.

We are still in the beta phase of this feature, so I’m sure there will be more changes and tweaking, and the Story Tags Portal has not been re-designed from it’s ugly testing-phase look yet, but in the long run, we think this feature will help readers to find the stories they are interested in. Thanks to everyone who has worked to help make this feature a reality and to those who have sent feedback to help improve it already.