Best way to store tags in a sql server table?

Question

What\'s the best way to store tags for a record? Just use a varchar field? What about when selecting rows that contains tag x? Use the like operator?

thanks!

Answer 1

Use a tags table with the smallest allowable primary key. If there are less than 255 tags use a byte (tinyint) or else a word (smallint). The smaller the key the smaller and faster the index on the foreign key in the main table.