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Pieces of art on deviantart are tagged, but they don't show them on the webpage. How do I/can I see what tags something has? I've tried to view source and look at the <meta name="keywords" content="..."> tag but nothing unique seems to be there, I just get this:

<meta name="keywords" content="Art, Digital Art, Photography, Traditional Art, Community Art, Contemporary Art, Modern Art, Skins, Themes, Poetry, Prose, Applications, Wallpapers, Online Art, Graphic Design, Web Design, Gaming, Animation, Comic Books, Digital Images" />

Here is where they're entered on the submit page:

Is this even possible?

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Screenshot? Not sure what tags you mean (Don't use deviant alot) – phwd♦ Aug 15 '12 at 4:34
This is the issue, they aren't displayed. They can only be seen by the person submiting the piece of art. – Pureferret Aug 15 '12 at 11:25
Pretty sure you can't, but finding definite quote on it is hard – Eight Days of Malaise Sep 23 '12 at 14:29
@EightDaysofMalaise then how is it used when you search? – Pureferret Sep 23 '12 at 14:42
It's used internally for the search, not displayed in public – Eight Days of Malaise Sep 23 '12 at 17:17
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Google and other services stopped using Meta tags long ago to help rank search results (they now focus on the actual text on the page). Deviantart uses "keywords" to help find results through their search engine, which I imagine uses the keywords on the server side, which means that the the users can not see them. I looked for a few images and viewed the source for each page, but none of my suggested search terms were in the keywords section - most of the time my search terms were in the title of the page that I searched for. Granted, I don't have a Deviantart account, but this is my assumption.

I contacted deviantART and this is the reply that I received, but did not, however, get an explanation as to why the users could not see the tags:

Chris, Dec 18 05:09 am (PST):

Hi there,

Thanks for the inquiry. These tags are only visible on the server side. You will not be able to see these by viewing the deviation. These tags are used for search queries on site.

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That's a good assumption, but not much further than I got. which I imagine uses the keywords on the server side, which means that the the users can not see them. I don't see why this necessitates the users not being able to see the tags in use.... – Pureferret Dec 15 '12 at 21:36
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@Pureferret I will contact Deviantart to see, I'll post the response here when I get it. – ekaj Dec 16 '12 at 1:24
up vote -1 down vote

deviantart.com stores that information on their database server. And for good reason; it would pose a security risk. Short of using an exploit to hack/view their database, there's no way of seeing what keywords are linked to the image in question. Sorry :/

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Why would it lead to a security risk? – Pureferret Dec 12 '12 at 22:53
Injections. You always want to keep the database "at arm's length" when programming. Especially on large databases. – bobthyasian Dec 13 '12 at 16:55
Deviantart would also be storing image ids and user ids on the site which are used within the site's html to navigate around. – Dez Dec 13 '12 at 19:13
@bobthyasian wouldn't that be the same with tags here on Stack Exchange? I see SE as more advanced/secure than dA any day of the week. Besides, if SQL/JSON injection is going to get someone from such an easy avenue, I don't see how hiding valid data will help. – Pureferret Dec 13 '12 at 23:06

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