Pixiv Tag Compendium - A Sample of What I've Seen and Used
UPDATE 3: As of December 19, 2016, in a suprise turn of events, Pixiv has decided to revert the layout back to the old design for good, putting an end to the new layout. This decision was made after listening to fan feedback. With that in mind, the previous two updates are now null and void. You can skip right to the article proper now.
UPDATE 2: Recently Pixiv enabled users to freely switch between the old layout and the new layout. The old layout retains all of the old features, including stars and bookmarks (which the new layout consolidated into "Likes"). Unless Pixiv nixes the old layout for good in the future, everything in this entry refers to the old layout. Several parts will still apply to the new layout as well.
UPDATE: As of October 20, 2016, Pixiv has made a major overhaul to their site's layout. This also means that some feature have gone missing. At the moment, New Work: Everyone is no where to be found. This also means that the Pic Speed is missing, which might make it harder to gauge when peak time has started. I'll give it around a month to see if any of these are reimplemented and will ammend this entry accordingly. None of these changes has impacted the tags.
When uploading artwork to (or just browsing) Pixiv, it’s best to use Japanese tags (as mentioned on their Help page). Use English tags only if the romanji is what’s most used and recognized anyway (like VOCALOID or Overwatch). It’s also best to use tags that have the most use (evidenced by the result number). The only exception to the rule is title tags. For example, take games like Lords of Thunder or 魔天童子 (Matendoji, the Japanese title for Conquest of the Crystal Palace). While they’re obscure games as far as fanart is concerned and yield little results, use them anyway. You never know if fans might be around looking for fanart, or outside fans start wondering what game that piece of fanart comes from. There are tags with multiple ways to say it, like boobs being おっぱいor 胸. If stretched for tags (10 allowed, 9 for R-18 since one of them is “R-18”), use the one with the most results.
NOTE: I’ve seen some users have multiple terms act as one tag by using a ・ in between each term (ex. おっぱ・巨乳・縛乳), thus allowing you to use more terms than the 10 you’re allowed. As counterintuitive as it may seem, anyone searching up an individual tag of the cluster can still find your pic (i.e. searching for 巨乳 will still pull up a pic containingおっぱい・巨乳・縛乳 as its tag). However since you’d be essentially gaming the tagging system, I don’t know if you’d get in trouble by Pixiv administration. If you choose to do this, do it at your own risk.
If you want to type in Japanese, you can enable the JP Keyboard on your computer. When enabled, just press alt+shift to switch to JP keyboard. Hit it again to switch back to ENG. http://www.yesjapan.com/video/pages/install-japanese-windows-7-vista.html
If you know Japanese and opt to type in Japanese all of the tags, I’ve put each Kanji’s respective Hiragana writing next to it. Just hit space when you finish typing it and find the corresponding Kanji in the little menu that pops up.
As for when to post your new artwork, it depends on the content. Most people in Japan are online during the evening and into the night. Sounds like a good thing at first, but the end result is that your art might get lost in the shuffle. You’ll get most of your initial views from the New Work: Everyone page, followed by the tags, and afterwards (if you’re lucky and enough people bookmark your work) the Recommendations next to another’s artwork page. R-18 pics however, because of their placement in their own section, have an easier time getting seen during high-traffic. As a reference, if you live in the EST time zone, look at your current time, then add 2 hours to it (1 during Daylight Savings), then flip the AM to PM (or PM to AM). That’s what time it is in Japan (ex. 6:22PM EST = 8:22AM JST). So to make things easier, All-Ages (SFW) work should be uploaded during our night, while R-18 works should be uploaded during our morning. If you’re still not sure, check the Current Speed under New Work: Everyone. The higher the number, the more active the traffic is.
You can also add a Japanese clock to your PC to see what time it is in Japan at a glance. Click the time on lower right and click on “Change date and time settings”. Under the “Additional Clocks”, click on one of the drop-down menus and find (GMT+9:00) Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo. If you want, you can click on the “show this clock” check box so that the Japan time clock is displayed alongside your time zone’s clock when you click on the time. Regardless, simply hovering over the time will show Japan’s time alongside yours.
NOTE: Your All-Ages pics might be a slow-burn at first, but 70% of the time they’ll explode once high traffic kicks in. You might have better results the closer you release your pics to peak-time (without it actually being on peak-time). If you do it long before or after peak-time, your pic will be lost in the shuffle of the entire day. It’s all about finding that sweet spot between timing and pic speed.
Now then, because it might break FC2's guidelines on tag spamming, I'll instead put them all in a pastebin.
Here's a link to the tags:
http://pastebin.com/cWYXc2W0
To look for the tag you want, crtl+f the English term>copy paste the Japanese term into the tag field.
Since I forgot to put it, I highly recommend reading up more info on Ranking Tags. These are tags that you SHOULD NOT put on your own pic. Instead these are tags other users may place on your pic's tag area (yes, they can do that if it's enabled) as a means of opinion or if you reached a milestone. If you put them yourself, you risk either your account getting suspended or having your reputation on Pixiv take a hit.
There's more over on the English version Pixiv Enclyclopedia page (which also includes translations like what I did above), however it may not be as comprehensive as the Japanese version. And some pages are still under construction. If you decide to utilize it, always keep in mind their result number. Remember, you're only allowed a limited amount of tags. So pick 'em wisely! And also remember to use the Japanese counterpart.
This compendium is still very much a work-in-progress and is really meant to help users at a glance. I'll be adding more as I find them and see if they're useful. If there's any words you think should be added that have much usage on Pixiv, hit me up on the comments below.
If you want to type in Japanese, you can enable the JP Keyboard on your computer. When enabled, just press alt+shift to switch to JP keyboard. Hit it again to switch back to ENG. http://www.yesjapan.com/video/pages/install-japanese-windows-7-vista.html
If you know Japanese and opt to type in Japanese all of the tags, I’ve put each Kanji’s respective Hiragana writing next to it. Just hit space when you finish typing it and find the corresponding Kanji in the little menu that pops up.
As for when to post your new artwork, it depends on the content. Most people in Japan are online during the evening and into the night. Sounds like a good thing at first, but the end result is that your art might get lost in the shuffle. You’ll get most of your initial views from the New Work: Everyone page, followed by the tags, and afterwards (if you’re lucky and enough people bookmark your work) the Recommendations next to another’s artwork page. R-18 pics however, because of their placement in their own section, have an easier time getting seen during high-traffic. As a reference, if you live in the EST time zone, look at your current time, then add 2 hours to it (1 during Daylight Savings), then flip the AM to PM (or PM to AM). That’s what time it is in Japan (ex. 6:22PM EST = 8:22AM JST). So to make things easier, All-Ages (SFW) work should be uploaded during our night, while R-18 works should be uploaded during our morning. If you’re still not sure, check the Current Speed under New Work: Everyone. The higher the number, the more active the traffic is.
You can also add a Japanese clock to your PC to see what time it is in Japan at a glance. Click the time on lower right and click on “Change date and time settings”. Under the “Additional Clocks”, click on one of the drop-down menus and find (GMT+9:00) Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo. If you want, you can click on the “show this clock” check box so that the Japan time clock is displayed alongside your time zone’s clock when you click on the time. Regardless, simply hovering over the time will show Japan’s time alongside yours.
NOTE: Your All-Ages pics might be a slow-burn at first, but 70% of the time they’ll explode once high traffic kicks in. You might have better results the closer you release your pics to peak-time (without it actually being on peak-time). If you do it long before or after peak-time, your pic will be lost in the shuffle of the entire day. It’s all about finding that sweet spot between timing and pic speed.
Now then, because it might break FC2's guidelines on tag spamming, I'll instead put them all in a pastebin.
Here's a link to the tags:
http://pastebin.com/cWYXc2W0
To look for the tag you want, crtl+f the English term>copy paste the Japanese term into the tag field.
Since I forgot to put it, I highly recommend reading up more info on Ranking Tags. These are tags that you SHOULD NOT put on your own pic. Instead these are tags other users may place on your pic's tag area (yes, they can do that if it's enabled) as a means of opinion or if you reached a milestone. If you put them yourself, you risk either your account getting suspended or having your reputation on Pixiv take a hit.
There's more over on the English version Pixiv Enclyclopedia page (which also includes translations like what I did above), however it may not be as comprehensive as the Japanese version. And some pages are still under construction. If you decide to utilize it, always keep in mind their result number. Remember, you're only allowed a limited amount of tags. So pick 'em wisely! And also remember to use the Japanese counterpart.
This compendium is still very much a work-in-progress and is really meant to help users at a glance. I'll be adding more as I find them and see if they're useful. If there's any words you think should be added that have much usage on Pixiv, hit me up on the comments below.
