<h1> use for non-text?

[keyplyr]

Does anyone feel it would be poor SEO to use the <h1> tag to enlarge font characters for visual design?

example: <h1> $ </h1> (where this is not a component of a heading or title)

[deejay]

I'd be pretty iffy about it. Seems to me you could be effectively diminishing the importance of your actual keywords in the rest of the text.

[Nick_W]

Well, you should only have one h1 tag per page for good doc structure. But to enlarge text? Bad idea! Use css...

<p class="large">This is large</p>

.large {
font-size: 2em;
font-weight: bold;
}

Nick

[keyplyr]

Thanks, I changed it.

There were no other <h1> tags on the page and it was config'd in CSS. It was just an attempt to conserve by using a tag that was already in the CSS, rather than define yet another class just for the one instance.

[papabaer]

Dejay and Nick_W both touch on the core issue: function & presentation.

HTML elements all have basic, well defined functions. It is impossible to use elements without affecting design; elements carry certain display propeties that browser render in a generally similar fashion. Headings and paragraphs are both important elements in page structure and each carries a certain "weight" in indexing value.

When I need (er, want) to display a bit of text or a specific characters for presentation purposes only, I use the most generic of HTML elements: the div!

There is more flexibility here since the div is a generic container without any predefined display attributes such as the default fore and aft spacing attributed to most other elements. This makes controlling margins and padding much easier.

Sometimes you may find that the default spacing that comes with the <p> element suits your purpose perfectly. other times you may find the generic <div> more appropriate.

Tools for the toolbox!
- papabaer

[luma]

Don't use <H1>, use <big> instead.