The new tagging system is now live as of September 26, 2018 on Twitch.tv. Tags can be used to categorize channels with additional details. To add tags to your channel go to the dashboard and check in the "Stream Information" for the tags section.
Search for the tag that best fits your channel, you can have up to 5 different tags. Your language setting is also included in the tagging system. Once you have added in all the tags for your channel, press update information button.
All the various tags will be available as filter options in the directory pages. The tagging system will also be used in personalized recommendation section(s) to show more similar streams based on past history and tag listings. For instance, if you watch channels that are tagged as 'PvE', the recommendation sections will show more of those types of channels.
Notable Changes
The gaming directory now has unique tags dedicated to genres.
List of Game Directory Genres:
- Action
- Adventure
- Adventure Game
- Battle Royale
- Card & Board Game
- Compilation
- Creative
- Driving
- Driving/Racing Game
- Educational Game
- Fighting
- Flight Simulator
- FPS
- Gambling Game
- Horror
- IRL
- MMORPG
- MOBA
- Non-gaming
- Pinball
- Platformer
- Puzzle
- Rhythm & Music Game
- Roguelike
- RPG
- RTS
- Shoot 'Em Up
- Shooter
- Simulation
- Sports
- Strategy
The POPULAR listing is now called Live Channels, this still includes 'ReRun' streams.
If you are looking to search for specific languages, you can either type it in the filter or switch the 'Showing' section to 'Live Channels' and find it in the drop down list.
Creative Section changes
The creative section has changed, "Creative" is now a genre with tags that are searchable.
- Music & Performing Arts
- Art
- Food & Drink
- Makers & Crafting
- Beauty & Body Art
The IRL section has changed, "IRL" is now a genre with tags that are searchable.
- Just Chatting
- Music & Performing Arts
- Talk Shows & Podcasts
- ASMR
- Travel & Outdoors
- Food & Drink
- Makers & Crafting
- Science & Technology
- Beauty & Body Art
- Special Events
- Sports & Fitness
Update 4/18/2020
Make sure to use all 5 tag slots for your stream because Twitch is using certain tags for their sitemap indexing pages that search engines crawl and then index into their directories. This is sadly going to only benefit the top viewed vod and the most live concurrent channels but you maybe lucky with a smaller channel to still be index'ed in time to time because many top end streamers are to lazy to add in tags.
Here is a list of the current specific tags used in Twitch's sitemap index that you should be using.
| Channels | VODS |
| 100 | 100 |
| 12 Hour Challenge | |
| Achievement Hunting | Achievement Hunting |
| AMA | AMA |
| Analysis | |
| Animals | Animals |
| Animation | |
| Anime | Anime |
| Any | Any |
| Arena | |
| Auditory ASMR | |
| Backseat Gaming Allowed | Backseat Gaming Allowed |
| Basketball | Basketball |
| Beginner Players | Beginner Players |
| Blind Playthrough | Blind Playthrough |
| Cash Game | |
| Casual Playthrough | |
| Celeb | Celeb |
| Challenge Run | Challenge Run |
| Charity | Charity |
| Closed Captions | |
| Coaching | Coaching |
| Competitive | Competitive |
| Cooking | Cooking |
| Cooperative | Cooperative |
| Cosplay | Cosplay |
| Digital Art | |
| DJ | DJ |
| Drawing | Drawing |
| Duos | Duos |
| Early Access Play | Early Access Play |
| Educational | Educational |
| Electronic Music | Electronic Music |
| End Game | |
| Epic Level Characters | |
| Esports | Esports |
| EU Server | EU Server |
| Evil Characters | Evil Characters |
| Exploration | Exploration |
| Family Friendly | Family Friendly |
| Farming | Farming |
| Fashion | |
| Finance | |
| First Playthrough | First Playthrough |
| Game Show | Game Show |
| Gaming News | Gaming News |
| Hard Mode | Hard Mode |
| Hip Hop Music | Hip Hop Music |
| Illustration | |
| Improv | |
| League | League |
| Let's Play | Let's Play |
| Leveling | LGBTQIA |
| LGBTQIA | |
| Live Vlogging | Live Vlogging |
| Marathon | Marathon |
| Match Commentary | Match Commentary |
| Meme Runs | Meme Runs |
| Mental Health | Mental Health |
| Mindfulness | Mindfulness |
| Modded | Modded |
| Mode Battle Royale | |
| Mode Survival | Mode Survival |
| Multiplayer | Multiplayer |
| Music Performance | Music Performance |
| Music Production | Music Production |
| NA Server | NA Server |
| News | News |
| No Backseat Gaming | No Backseat Gaming |
| No Spoilers | No Spoilers |
| Party Game | Party Game |
| PB Attempts | PB Attempts |
| Permadeath | |
| Playing with Viewers | Playing with Viewers |
| Pro Fortnite | Pro Fortnite |
| Pro Hearthstone | Pro Hearthstone |
| PvE | PvE |
| PvP | PvP |
| Racing | Racing |
| Radio | Radio |
| Ranked | Ranked |
| Retro | |
| Roleplay | Roleplay |
| Singing | Singing |
| Singleplayer | Singleplayer |
| Soccer | Soccer |
| Social Eating | Social Eating |
| Solos | Solos |
| Speedrun | Speedrun |
| Squads | Squads |
| Standup Comedy | Standup Comedy |
| Strength Training | Strength Training |
| Tournament | Tournament |
| Tutorial | |
| Twitch Stream Aid | Twitch Stream Aid |
| Visual ASMR | Visual ASMR |
| Voice Acting | Voice Acting |
| VR | VR |
| Warming Up | Warming Up |
| WR Attempts |
Twitch appears to have a special tag called "Celeb" which only a couple channels appear to be enabled for which include the following: xqcow, drdisrespect, nickmercs, timthetatman, lirik. Some other tags in the above list may also be not accessible, I do not have the time to check all of them.
Another issue to be noted on is that you can only set the tags before your stream or during your stream. Currently you can not go into your VODS and switch tags. VODS take the tags that were made during the stream session. I hope they allow VOD tagging to be enabled in the future.
