Exports often pack several values into one cell: tags like gift;eco;bestseller or colors like oak|walnut. To count or filter them, give each value its own row:
tags["tags"].str.split(";").explode()
str.split(";") turns each cell into a list, and explode() puts each list item on its own row, repeating the row's index (and, on a DataFrame, its other columns). Things to watch:
- A missing cell stays missing (NaN) after splitting and exploding.
- A stray separator, like
new;, splits into ["new", ""], which gives an empty tag. Remove empty strings before counting.
- The index repeats after
explode; pass ignore_index=True for a fresh one.
On a DataFrame, df.explode("col") explodes one column and copies the others.