Using H1 Headings - More than 1?
-
I've known about avoiding the use of more than 1 H1 Heading Tags, however, with HTML5 is this going to change... at least that's how I understand it.
According to HTML5 Specs, Each 'section' can have an H1 heading, which at least theoretically means certain web pages that have multiple "sectioning elements" can have more than 1 H1 heading... true? False?
What I'm looking for here is some insight into the ramifications HTML5 will have on the use of H1 tags.
And would like to know how search engines currently handle this and are they anticipated to change as the HTML5 outline algorithm becomes widely supported?
thanks in advance
Kelly
-
Thanks for the answer, I do appreciate the time you took .
-
Great question. Yes, HTML5 allows for, and in some ways even encourages use of multiple H1 tags for certain types content, but.....
It's really not a big deal. Right now, there's very little correlation data that shows much of a difference in rankings between pages that use the h1, don't use it at all, or use it multiple time. In the old days, this was a bigger deal, but not so much.
(interestingly, there seems to be a slight correlation with the number of H4 tags, although this probably is only an indication of well-structured content.)
If there is any effect, the H1 tag in HTML5 may help webmasters better organize their content, and may provide better semantic structuring that the search engines are able to use and interpret.
Hopefully it's a good thing.
-
Because it is not out and nobody is the search engine the best you can get is speculation. If you want opinion, here is mine. You can put multiple H1 tags into your code now, even if it is not good optimization, so I don't see why you would not be able to do so in all future versions. The reality is search engines only give minor weight to the first H1 tag on the page and don't even really look at your h2 h3 h4 ect tags. If they ever allowed multiple h1 tags, I'm sure the search engines would either put even less importance on the h tag, if any at all, or would do what it is doing now and look at the first one and disregard all others. The main use of h tags is to create good readable content not to optimize for seo.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does anyone have data on the effect of multiple H1 tags on a page?
One of my website's sub-domains is fed information from a job board master-template, thus my site (and hundreds of other sites) is just branded styling pulling from one external source. Because of the way this master template is set up (not very concerned with SEO best practices), I have found the need to hide the H1 coming from the master template, and display a new separate H1 in my styling. This is being done with user-experience in mind, but how will search engines respond to having two H1s (one hidden, one visible) on a page? I understand that a single H1 is usually ideal, and hidden page components are typically frowned upon because they don't add user value... but in this case, the hidden component is solely for the benefit of the user. I would like to find the best balance of SEO and UX, so I am very interested in any experimental data or case studies on a similar situation.
Web Design | | pbailey0 -
What does they use?
Hey guys, I was reading Brian's Guide to backlinking and other Quicksprout guide and I asked myself how do they use for create that pages. They are using wordpress, but what tools do they use for creating that landing pages? Optimizepress plugin? Other template builder plugin? Thank u very much.
Web Design | | Italianseolover0 -
Should I Use An Animated Javascript Responsive Site
Hi, hope someone might be able to help me with this. I am setting my son up with a website for his small painting and decorating company. However, I am a wordpress stalwart and he has seen a theme which is a javascript animated responsive theme from template monster. Its not my choice just he is adamant that he wants it. However, I am slightly concerned that Google cannot index as well with these kind of sites as they would with a standard HTML site. I would be grateful if someone could confirm if they can be indexed etc. The content appears in what I can only describe as lightboxes. Thanks
Web Design | | denismilton0 -
Does Using Magento With Multi Sites Affect SEO
We have a client who has 3 separate websites targeting the US, Australia, and the UK. Each of them has relevant ccTLD's such as: .com .com.au and .co.uk. Our client wants to use the Magento multi-site function so it combines all the stores (which are the exact same products) and merge it into one through Magento. These sites are all hosted in the US and had nothing to do with me haha! I understand Rand has mentioned on a video it would be best having the websites with ccTLD's hosted in that country (if budget permits), however in this case the budget doesn't permit us to go down that road. Has anyone any advice on this matter, has anyone did this before and had a lot of success with the SEO? At present there doesn't seem to be a lot of information about it and opinions are varied and sometimes divided. Any help would be very much appreciated guys Thanks, Matt
Web Design | | HigherthanSEO0 -
Amazon s3 how do i use it as a cdn service
Hi i have signed up to s3 amazon and have uploaded my images to my bucket but the trouble i am having is, how do i have the images on my site. i have tried to use the url that it is showing but all that is doing is https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/in2town/audreyrobertslarge.jpg not bringing up the image on my site and when i have done it through the internet search box it does not bring up an image. I have been told this is a great cdn service and a cost effective one but i really need to learn how to use it. has anyone used this service and if so can you please let me know what i need to do I have now managed to get a bit futher with the help of stuart Bell but the images are still not showing on my site. any help would be great. many regards
Web Design | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Why or why not use Dot Net Nuke (DNN)?
I have development team pitching my client on using Dot Net Nuke (DNN) for the CMS. I have no experience with DNN and not sure why the developers want to use it. They do want to use Server SQL and may build some software for a different part of the project in .NET. What SEO and UX questions should I ask about using DNN?
Web Design | | Joshen0 -
What value could you expect from the use of schema.org metadata?
Google , Yahoo and Bing have now teamed up to develop unified Meta data standards for all types of content. I personally see this as the next step to larger world-wide knowledge availability. Why is this a big deal?
Web Design | | andrewwolf
If everything comes together, and every page had perfect markup, the answers to users questions could be answered and validated against the information found on every website that had that answer. Example: Who is the author of "The catcher in the Rye" 11345 Websites Result : J. D. Salinger
301: Websites Resulted : Jake Salinger Best Result: J.D. Salinger -> Contact J.D Salinger -> Bio etc. Information would become the link , user's navigation intent becoming the Anchors. Here is the URL of the different types of metadata schema's found on google's new schema.org http://schema.org/docs/schemas.html Creative works: CreativeWork, Book, Movie, MusicRecording, Recipe, TVSeries ... Embedded non-text objects: AudioObject, ImageObject, VideoObject Event Organization Person Place, LocalBusiness, Restaurant ... Product, Offer, AggregateOffer Review, AggregateRating What are the benefits of the different categories of metadata being used? Can anyone site specific case studies done on the enhanced SERP results shown as a result of this metadata?0 -
Correct use for Robots.txt
I'm in the process of building a website and am experimenting with some new pages. I don't want search engines to begin crawling the site yet. I would like to add the Robot.txt on my pages that I don't want them to crawl. If I do this, can I remove it later and get them to crawl those pages?
Web Design | | EricVallee340