I'd like to nitpick tag terms real quick, though: The canonical Tag Page will also show you a list of tags with the same meaning that have been merged with the canonical tag, parent tags, sub (or "child") tags, or "meta" tags.
Subtags are technically a type of child tag, but child tags are mostly not subtags. Likewise, metatags are sort of a parent tag, but parent tags are rarely metatags.
Example: character: "John Watson" (JW, henceforth) http://archiveofourown.org/tags/John%20Watson JW is a child tag of a number of fandom tags, including "Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle". "Sherlock (TV)" is a parent tag to JW as well. Searching for the parent tag won't necessarily return works with the child tag (it has some importance for the auto-complete, and a lot for keeping wrangling sane, but outside of that, parent and child links don't have a huge impact. Parent and Child tags are (almost) always different tag types.
JW has a wall of synonyms - on the Tag View page, these are called "Tags with the Same Meaning". Searching for a synonym tag will return results of any other synonym, and list them all under the canonical.
JW is a subtag of "John" and of "Watson". Searching "Watson" will grab all works marked "Watson" as well as works with "John Watson" and the other subtags. JW is a metatag for "Joan Watson": searching for "John Watson" will include results using "Joan Watson", but searching for "Joan Watson" will not return results with JW.* Searching for a metatag will return results for any of its subtags. Searching for a subtag will never return metatag results. Metatags and subtags are _always_ within the same tag type.
* this latter relationship is for genderalt and competing canon reasons
Probably way too much info, and kinda off topic, but thought I should say. tl;dr: The canonical Tag Page will also show you a list of tags with the same meaning that have been merged with the canonical tag, metatags and subtags, parent tags, and child tags.
no subject
I'd like to nitpick tag terms real quick, though:
Subtags are technically a type of child tag, but child tags are mostly not subtags. Likewise, metatags are sort of a parent tag, but parent tags are rarely metatags.
Example: character: "John Watson" (JW, henceforth) http://archiveofourown.org/tags/John%20Watson
JW is a child tag of a number of fandom tags, including "Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle". "Sherlock (TV)" is a parent tag to JW as well.
Searching for the parent tag won't necessarily return works with the child tag (it has some importance for the auto-complete, and a lot for keeping wrangling sane, but outside of that, parent and child links don't have a huge impact. Parent and Child tags are (almost) always different tag types.
JW has a wall of synonyms - on the Tag View page, these are called "Tags with the Same Meaning".
Searching for a synonym tag will return results of any other synonym, and list them all under the canonical.
JW is a subtag of "John" and of "Watson". Searching "Watson" will grab all works marked "Watson" as well as works with "John Watson" and the other subtags. JW is a metatag for "Joan Watson": searching for "John Watson" will include results using "Joan Watson", but searching for "Joan Watson" will not return results with JW.*
Searching for a metatag will return results for any of its subtags. Searching for a subtag will never return metatag results. Metatags and subtags are _always_ within the same tag type.
* this latter relationship is for genderalt and competing canon reasons
Probably way too much info, and kinda off topic, but thought I should say. tl;dr: