Hey Sam, thanks for the question. I wouldn’t say tagging is a form of linking. Conceptually it’s quite different. A tag is like a bag where you put your notes in. There is no organization within such a bag. Or another way to put it, a tag creates a category. A link, on the other hand, creates point-to-point relationships.

Example:

Consider humanity. You could categorize all humans by nationality using tags. For instance, you could have a tag for Canadians, another for Germans, another for Spaniards, etc.

Links, on the other hand, allow you to establish specific relationships among specific people. For instance, you could have a link from Adam to Ben to represent the fact that Adam is the father of Ben. If you now have another “Fatherhood” link from Ben to Charlie, you could follow the links from Adam to Ben to Charlie and know that Adam is the grandfather of Charlie. With tags you cannot capture such relationships.

So as you can see if you wanted to organize humanity using tags and links, you would use them quite differently. If you wanted to organize ideas or notes, it’s the same. Tags are for categorization and links are for relationships.